IN BRIEF FRESH UGANDAN ATTACK A REBEL group which killed 80 students and abducted 50 more in western Uganda this week has struck again, killing five more people. The Allied Democratic Forces fighters killed a man, his two children and two Ugandan soldiers in Kabarole district on Wednesday. Earlier this week the ADF attacked a […]

With South Africa’s second democratic elections concluded, it is clear that the country has reached the end of an era.

Loose cannon Robert Kirby `The time has come for work.” The muted but somehow resonant assurance with which Mr Thabo Mbeki closed off his “victory speech” at Gallagher Estate; a speech which, uncommonly for any latter-born politician, expressed more by virtue of its restraint than its rhetoric. To even the most gloomy of sceptics, Mbeki’s […]

Libby Young The last year has seen South African cyberspace grow up. The number of users has passed that crucial one million benchmark, Web addresses are starting to appear on bumper stickers and no business card is complete without an e-mail address. So what’s been happening to South Africa’s search engines? Newcomer Max, , from […]

The winner of the Lillian Hellman/Dashiell Hammet award is not a standard academic, reports Mercedes Sayagues Judged on her writings alone, Dr Patricia McFadden appears to be an African Valkyrie in metal breast-plates, who sees the world through rigid prisms of gender and race. But when you meet her, she is a warm woman with […]

The famous rave drug on its own is not responsible for the deaths of productive young people, argues Ted Leggett The death of a young woman after her first experiment with “ecstasy” last weekend has brought the so-called “club drugs” to national attention. The incredible variety of substances associated with the rave scene have led […]

Neil Manthorp Depending on other results, Sunday’s match against Australia could be a case of “win or go home” for both sides. If South Africa have been successful against New Zealand, then Australia will need to win and Hansie Cronje’s side can play without pressure. Either way, South Africa will face a better Australian one-day […]

You write a novel, the proof copies get passed around, panic sets in. Will they like it? Is it well enough written? Did I do justice to the characters? You wait to hear the cut and thrust of intellectual argument spearing down your literary faults. But no, what I got instead was quiet corner confessions […]

Marianne Merten Large numbers of the Western Cape’s Muslim 150 000-strong population went to the polling booths across the province despite earlier calls on them not to vote. Those who cast their votes were unanimous – it was a Qur’anic duty to vote. Two weeks ago, the Islamic Unity Convention (IUC) called on Muslims not […]

supply lines Unita’s smuggling Chris Gordon The United Nations, having faced up to the failure of its peacekeeping operation in Angola, has launched a new bid to shorten the war by targeting the sanctions-busting arms, oil and diamond trade that is keeping Unita in business. After 16 intensive days in Southern Africa, Robert Fowler, Canadian […]