More disillusioned MPs are expected to defect to the Democratic Party, writes Howard Barrell As the Democratic Party increasingly assumes the mantle of unofficial leader of the opposition in Parliament from the ailing National Party, a number of MPs from other opposition parties are expected to jump ship in coming weeks. Only the timing of […]

Chiara Carter The Pan Africanist Congress is spelt “Pat” in several townships and platteland towns in the Western Cape. PAC MP Patricia de Lille’s involvement in bread-and-butter issues is helping the party make inroads into coloured communities in the Western Cape – and attract a handful of white members. This weekend the PAC will launch […]

The voyeurist counsel Mail & Guardian reporter There is a certain irony in the fact that the independent prosecutor who reportedly sings hymns on his morning jog and keeps a calendar with daily scripture verses at home should be the author of the United States’s latest publishing sensation. The 440-page report produced by Kenneth Starr […]

A small church is reuniting the uprooted residents of Kofifi, writes Peter Makurube When former residents of Sophiatown talk about their beloved Kofifi, they overdose on nostalgia. They’ve forgotten nothing – the music, the gangsters and the community spirit. However, the story of Sophiatown would not be complete without mentioning the tiny church on Ray […]

ballet It will soon be Brazil’s second most popular sport … and it’s not entirely dissimilar to the first. Alex Bellos heads for Rio’s beaches to uncover the burgeoning cult of futevolei One of the most romantic myths about Rio de Janeiro is that its famous beaches are full of barefoot urchins dazzling passers-by with […]

Ferial Haffajee The production house Urban Brew will not take its new-look breakfast television show for SABC2 to air as planned. The launch date has been delayed by at least a fortnight, reportedly because Urban Brew is not yet ready to broadcast. The breakfast contract is the SABC’s most lucrative. Worth R40-million, the pitch for […]

There was occasion for thanksgiving this week, on the release from Mozambique’s Machave prison of Robert McBride, although there is something of a puzzle as to who should be thanked. Not the African National Congress, few members of which turned up at Johannesburg International airport to welcome him home and thereby claim the credit. Under […]

The United Nations last week called for urgent action to raise the living standards of the world’s poor after disclosing that a billion people have been left out of the consumption boom of the past two decades. In its annual Human Development Report, the UN said gross inequalities between rich and poor countries were getting […]

Deputy President Thabo Mbeki was greatly angered when he discovered details of Robert McBride’s activities in Mozambique, writes Wally Mbhele Deputy President Thabo Mbeki was so much in the dark about Robert McBride’s undercover spying activities on behalf of government intelligence agencies that a special team of intelligence officials was dispatched to interview the diplomat […]

Tony Twine According to the cautionary tale, Goldilocks may well have been the archetypal consumer who fell foul of a bear trend. In search of that elusive economic entity, a free lunch (or was it breakfast?), she unleashed a sequence of events which left her at the mercy of the bears – quite a depressing […]