David Shapshak A ground-breaking new antibiotic has been discovered by a team of scientists based in Knysna, the latest in a series of innovative South African medical discoveries from natural sources. The potentially powerful broad-spectrum antibiotic is a molecule extracted from a South African plant species, says Greg Gilbert, a chemist who directs the scientific […]

Chris Dunton ENCOUNTERS: AN ANTHOLOGYOFSOUTHAFRICANSHORTSTORIES selected and introduced by David Medalie (Wits University Press) It’s true, I guess, of many, many short stories that they revolve around some kind of encounter – for that brief span of telling, a meeting, a conjunction, a confrontation is ideal to get the stuff of the story moving. But […]

Impinging, as it does, on the font of the new South Africa, the row between Judge Johann Kriegler and the government over the organisation of the next general election is obviously a matter of major concern to the country. But we cannot help but fear that it is symptomatic of an even wider and more […]

Chiara Carter The Democratic Party is anticipating further defections by New National Party politicians following its stunning defeat of the NNP in an area which for decades was a stronghold of the former National Party. The Kraaifontein municipal by-election on Wednesday saw DP candidate Fanie Jacobs win 531 votes, as opposed to 364 votes cast […]

David Shapshak and Joyce Barrett The Cape Town Olympic bid team knew an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member was “available to the highest bidder”, but it did not make use of this information to influence the bid. Caught up in the biggest corruption scandal of the IOC’s 105-year history, disgraced Swaziland IOC member David Sibandze […]

George Hazeldon believes his proposed self-sufficient community will solve South Africa’s crime problem … for some. Chris McGreal went behind the electric fence George Hazeldon likens his vision to Mont St Michel, the ancient French monastery and fortress. Detractors dismiss the British property developer’s scheme as a fool’s paradise. Either way, the contracts are rolling […]

Howard Barrell:OVER A BARREL The disintegration of a once great political party can be one of life’s less dignified sights. Old friends inexplicably become bitter enemies, and once deadly foes strangely firm friends. What once seemed like high political principle for party members is suddenly exposed as having been mere convenience. Political reputations that sparkled […]

Mungo Soggot:A SECOND LOOK In a letter to the Mail & Guardian last week, Willie Hofmeyr, African National Congress MP responded to an editorial, entitled “Ban guns, build jails, fire Sydney”, which discussed the lamentable state of law and order in South Africa. Hofmeyr hit back by cataloguing the creation of “drastic anti-crime laws”, the […]

WALLY MBHELE, Johannesburg | Friday 10.30am. EMBATTLED Mpumalanga Premier Mathews Phosa is set to be discharged of his duties next month as premier and African National Congress provincial chair when the party meets to finalise its list of parliamentary candidates. The ANC committee investigating the causes of infighting among ANC heavyweights in Mpumalanga — which […]

The family of Scottish immigrants who set up jiu-jitsu in Brazil still dominate the world’s toughest fighting art, writes Alex Bellos >From Robert the Bruce to Trainspotting’s Frank Begbie, the Scots have earned a reputation for their terrier-like fierceness. So it comes as a comforting proof of the stereotype that the man who created the […]