David Beresford: A SECOND LOOK There is something gloriously tragic about the story of the Afrikaners’ search for a national identity and a home to call their own: the flight from the Cape, the jubilant discovery of the Nile (wrong stream, but what the heck) and their arrival in their garden of Eden, only to […]

grows Wally Mbhele As rivals in the political debacle that is engulfing Mpumalanga mounted public attacks against each other – in the wake of a probe launched by the African National Congress into the affairs of the province – more damaging reports about ANC officials’ involvement in corruption were leaked this week. Documents in possession […]

Libby Brooks:FIRST PERSON You’ve got Mail, a romantic comedy, stars Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as bookshop owners who hate each other in real life but fall in love in cyberspace. Plausibility of plot and sex appeal aside, the film delivers one interesting contemporary comment: it is now as likely for a woman to rush […]

The latest spin on the trend of international DJs like John Digweed, Sasha, Paul Okenfold and Carl Cox gracing local clubland with their zeitgeist sounds is a kicking new deal between Virgin Records, 206 live, Pickle and the UK’s leading Big Beat label Wall of Sound Recordings. As two of South Africa’s largest supporters of […]

A new White Paper outlines what steps needs to be taken to ensure victims of disasters will have speedy access to emergency assistance, writes Janet Love Yet another tornado charged through the Eastern Cape this week, leaving a trail of destruction and devastation in the Mount Ayliff and Tabankulu districts. The police station, the school, […]

Matthew Krouse Down the tube E.tv’s first News broadcast, last Sunday, seemed more electrifying than it actually was. It had the veneer of something urgent and new. But some of the more shocking images were old, and some of the language seemed hyped. To start, the upbeat logo music pumped in over a blue montage […]

Dan Atkinson in London An infamous headline in a business newspaper is said to have reported the 1938 Munich Agreement thus: “Shares fall on peace fears,” and then there was the character in the film Reds who, asked what World War Iwas about, replied: “Profits.” The events of recent weeks prompt thoughts about the effects […]

the ball game The US media is obsessed with impeachment. But the people believe life has rarely been so sweet, says Ed Vulliamy During the week that the first impeachment trial of a United States president this century began in earnest, another record bit the dust. This one concerned the proverbial diamond-in-the-dust, as it happens: […]

Chiara Carter Northern Cape Premier Manne Dipico is convinced the African National Congress is positioned to wrest coloured votes from the New National Party and win the province outright in the coming elections. The province’s election race is likely to be closely watched because it is one of few where the government could change hands […]

The police version of the Boipatong massacre is beginning to unravel, write Mail & Guardian reporters Former Vaal policeman Sergeant Gerhardus “Pedro” Peens has admitted that he was in the Vaal Triangle township of Boipatong on the fateful night of June 17 1992 when 46 people – including women, children and a four- month-old baby […]