As the new mediator in the Burundi crisis, Nelson Mandela will have to work hard to convince the key players in the strife that they can benefit from peace.

declining Your articles (November 19 to 25) about the problems in tertiary education should have mentioned the declining standards in the quality of people who are being appointed as professors in our universities, and the lack of any professional body that can punish them for misconduct. A case in point occurred recently in Pietermaritzburg. An […]

Stefaans Brmmer and Mungo Soggot A Johannesburg-based German businessman recently named in the British press and in local intelligence reports as an arms dealer with pariah states says he is the victim of a plot by old-guard intelligence operatives. Rudolph Heinrich Wollenhaupt says that for several years he has been the target of an orchestrated […]

Labuschagne Wally Mbhele A senior policeman who once targeted the present-day chief of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), General Siphiwe Nyanda, for assassination, and abducted and tortured Nyanda’s wife, was this week bluntly denied amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Amid strong opposition to his application from victims’ families, Senior Superintendent […]

Bob Woolmer FROM THE PAVILION No team likes to get beaten, and, on the whole, England’s management were happy to concede that South Africa had played very well in order to win the first Test by an innings. Normally it would end there. But there was a proviso. The English team and many of its […]

EGYPT’s Oil Ministry has discovered four new oil and gas fields with an estimated total production of 5240 barrels per day of oil and total reserves of 41,5-million barrels. Official figures show Egyptian oil production in September was running at 768000 bpd versus 803100 bpd in September 1998. The Oil Ministry said in September the […]

torturer Howard Barrell The top National Intelligence Agency (NIA) official suspended from work on allegations that he stole R3-million from the agency is the same man who commanded the African National Congress’s infamous Quatro detention camp in Angola during the days of the worst excesses there. Sizwe Gabriel Mthembu, suspended from his job as head […]

players’ Vivek Chaudhary The likes of David Beckham, Alan Shearer and Ronaldo may be idolised on and off the pitch and earn millions of pounds each year. But as far as Fifa, world football’s governing body, is concerned, the future is female. In a surprise attack on male professional football, industry delegates at a conference […]

Shaun Harris TAKING STOCK There’s a deluge of investment advice available nowadays, so much that ordinary, individual investors probably feel a bit overwhelmed when considering where to put their spare funds. Much of this advice, however, is aimed at the institutions, particularly advice on equity investments. Stock market shares can be a great investment, but […]

Several paragraphs went missing from Lionel Abrahams’s review of Guy Butler’s Collected Poems last week. After “A major source of pressure and fire in his art is his deep experience of a world afflicted by division,” the review should have read: Articulating his own dilemmas, doubts and challenging insights, Butler foreshadows aspects of the new […]