Do anthems wear out their appeal and need replacing to suit new conditions? James Ambrose Brown examines South Africa’s three anthems that tell the tale of the century For the English it was God Save the Queen, and Land of Hope and Glory. For the Afrikaners it was Die Stem van Suid Afrika. For the […]

Wally Mbhele interviews the Mail & Guardian’s newsmaker of the year, Robert McBride On a cold morning on April 9, South Africans woke up to what was to become one of the biggest thrillers of the year: the arrest of a senior government official in a foreign country. The official was none other than the […]

Patricia Whitelock Perhaps it’s because we have 10 fingers and work on a decimal system that numbers and intervals of time like 10 and decade, 100 and century or 1 000 and millennium seem to have such significance. This probably explains the interest in the beginning of the new millennium, but not the controversy associated […]

knowledgeable you really are How clued up are you on the highs and lows, ins and outs of 1998? Test your skills with this brain-teaser 1 President Nelson Mandela made a special concession to pay the lawyers of an infamous politician more than double the going rate to prepare for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission […]

Free State Matthew Krouse Some feelings cannot be explained, they just have to be absorbed. For a Jew, like me, to meander through a small town in quest of the Christmas spirit on a sweltering Sunday feels quite odd. Even if the town is called Bethlehem, and the Sunday happens to be five days before […]

At the age of 102, Sholipi Mbutu has outlived all but one of her children, writes Swapna Prabhakaran Not many people remember Sholipi Mbutu’s name. At 102, she’s been an old woman for so long, everyone calls her Gogo. Mbutu lives with her daughter in a tiny house 40km from the coastal town of Kwambonambi, […]

General Sani Abacha (54), brutal Nigerian strongman and kleptocrat who seized power in a military coup in 1993. Official cause of death was a heart attack. Chief Mashood Abiola (60), Nigerian businessman and winner of the annulled 1993 elections who was incarcerated by Abacha and died within days of the dictator when his release from […]

Belinda Beresford Assuming the near-mythical millennium bug doesn’t wipe out your bank account or erase all traces of you in your pension fund, handling money in the year 2000 will have moved on more than a little from the start of this century. Cheques, notes and even coins are going the way of the gold […]

Ferial Haffajee If Anna Stoffberg lives for another year, she will earn the rare distinction of seeing in the start of two centuries. “I am a hundred-and- something,” says the wizened woman from her bed in a tiny council flat in Eldorado Park, a former coloured township near Johannesburg. The flat is home to 10 […]

Finding a cure for Aids may take years, but the medical fraternity is attempting to stop the spread of the disease, writes Stuart Hess While the world looks forward to a future in which infertile couples can have children via genetic cloning, and people with missing limbs can be given fully functional robotic hands, arms […]