Howard Barrell Leaders of agriculture and business joined forces to fight worsening crime this week – and to persuade desperate farmers and businessmen not to resort to unlawful protests against the government’s seeming inability to get to grips with the problem. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to prevent our members taking the law into their […]

Many of our readers will find the pictures of famine in southern Sudan which we have published deeply distressing. Some may feel that this is a visual invasion of privacy which should not be allowed. Others may wonder whether such appeals to our consciences are not just a short-term palliative: is there not a better […]

machine Andy Capostagno Golf It might be unkind to a fine tournament, but this week’s United States PGA Championship is likely to suffer by comparison. The PGA is older than the Masters and both Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagen won it five times, so it comes highly recommended. But because the wise men of the […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Friday 11.00pm. MPUMALANGA’S sacked deputy speaker, Cynthia Maropeng, was found guilty of self-enrichment and of bringing the African National Congress into disrepute by the party’s provincial disciplinary committee in Nelspruit on Friday. The three-man committee, headed by provincial finance MEC Jacques Modipane, tried Maropeng in her absence after she kept it […]

up Howard Barrell Over a Barrel While in exile with the African National Congress in Zimbabwe in the mid-1980s, I had a simple test to decide who I felt comfortable with. It was: can this person appreciate a good anti-ANC joke? If yes, the likelihood was we could work together. If not, co-operation was doubtful. […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Ginger Mahlamvu (22) was released from jail in May after spending two years behind bars for robbery. But unlike many former prisoners, he is hopeful about his future. “I felt like a useless person, and that I wouldn’t regain my dignity and trust from my family and the community because of […]

fraud Godfrey Thabo Makhubedu The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) has asked that criminal charges be laid against staff members of Technikon South Africa accused of corruption and fraud. This follows a series of internal disciplinary hearings against senior staff. In one of the worst instances, Herman Putter, employed at the centre […]

of Ooze This is the first newspaper interview he’s given for 20 years. What’s Stephen King got to be afraid of? Peter Conrad reports To be Stephen King is a traumatic fate: his head serves as an incubator for the world’s bad dreams. His face – currently bare of the beard behind which he hibernates […]

Elizabeth Wurtzel First Person In late June, Time magazine ran a story illustrated with the faces of Susan B Anthony, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, pictured in grave black and white. Next to the likeness of this righteous triumvirate was a colour photograph of Calista Flockhart aka Ally McBeal, above the red-lettered, alarmist question: is […]

Roger Southall A Second Look Your correspondent William Boot is being incautious in suggesting that Lesotho’s May election was rigged by the ruling Lesotho Congress of Democrats (LCD) (“Lesotho’s election farce”, August 7 to 13). A more careful look at the election is required. Preparations for the election began under the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) […]