Belinda Beresford The rich man in his castle and the poor man at the gate should each in their own degree be feeling at least content with the personal implications of the latest government budget. Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel has continued the government’s intention of redistributing income by relieving the direct tax burden on […]

Fiona Macleod It’s not surprising a culture of helping oneself to unearned gains has taken root in Mpumalanga – nor that the parks board is the instrument of this culture. Take a bird’s-eye view of the Sand River as it winds its way from the Northern Province through Mpumalanga, and you’ll see why: on one […]

Ferial Haffajee The Pan Africanist Congress will give the death penalty the chop but will sever the lesser limbs of criminals. If it assumes power after the elections, the party will also ban abortion, rescind anti-smoking legislation, scrap national debt and the provinces. The PAC pipped other parties to the post when it released its […]

Deon Potgieter Boxing The soft-spoken Naas Scheepers will be laying it all on the line when he climbs into the ring against national welterweight champion Peter Malinga at the Carousel next Thursday night. Malinga, a former World Boxing Union welterweight world champion, is moving up the ranks after his sensational first-round dismissal of former world […]

The Bloodline Series Volume 1 is one of five CDs that Cape Town-based New World Music has released, featuring top Khayelitsha musical talent. The Bloodline Series features three reggae acts, Bloodlines, Urban Mystics and The Future, making this a 14-track roots reggae compilation originally recorded live in the townships and subsequently remastered at New World […]

Neil Manthorp in Christchurch Cricket Gary Kirsten’s contribution to South Africa’s seven-wicket win over New Zealand on Wednesday night would have been seen as routine two years ago but this time his 81 not out might prove to be a watershed. It just doesn’t matter how much you have played, and how much experience you […]

David Shapshak Product: Opera 3.10 web browser Requirements: Minimum 386 SX Processor, 4Mb RAM Supplied by: Opera Software `It fits on a stiffy,” an enthusiastic colleague gleefully told me, presenting me with his latest software discovery. In these days of “bloatware” – as the huge, feature- laden, slow-moving bundled software packages by major developers have […]

Marianne Merten More than 200 people have heeded a Western Cape African National Congress call for members of the public to join the police reservists. Bright yellow posters calling for volunteers went up throughout Cape Town recently after the party pledged to National Commissioner George Fivaz that it would recruit 500 new volunteers by April […]

Globetrotting for his new book Eat the Rich, America’s favourite rightwing iconoclast found laughter in squalor and corruption everywhere. PJO’Rourke speaks to the Mail & Guardian Eat the Rich contrasts different economic systems around the world. What gave you the idea? I wanted to find out why some countries are so rich and others are […]

THERE is a link between the El Nio weather phenomenon and deadly horse epidemics in South Africa, British scientists said this week. In an article published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, researchers from the Institute of Animal Health said that climate changes resulting from El Nio caused a population explosion of the biting midge, […]