Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele: RIGHT TO REPLY Your article, “Whatever happened to the dream of low-cost housing”, February 20 to 26, was sensational and alarmist. My office has been co-operating with the media in making sure that their information needs are met on time. There is nothing sinister about verifying statistics and maintaining their integrity before releasing […]
Andrew Muchineripi: Soccer No sooner had caretaker coach Jomo Sono ditched the Bafana Bafana old guard than successor Philippe Troussier wants to bring them back for the World Cup in France during June. Labelled the “tried and trusted” by former coach Clive Barker and rejected as the “tired and detested” by large sections of the […]
Mail & Guardian reporter An incident of ugly on-air sexism on the Afrikaans commercial radio station, Punt Geselsradio, has ended on a happy note. The manne at the station have agreed to write a gender policy and to take lessons from organisations that have offered to train them in gender sensitivity. “We subscribe to an […]
Ronald Suresh Roberts THE HOUSE GUN by Nadine Gordimer (David Philip, R99,95) PARADISE by Toni Morrison (Chatto & Windus, R110) ‘Little illegal niggers with guns and no home training need to be in jail,” says a black resident of a blacks-only town, in Toni Morrison’s Paradise. Conversely, in Nadine Gordimer’s The House Gun, young white […]
IN BRIEF LESOTHO PM IN HOSPITAL LESOTHO Prime Minister Ntsu Mokhehle, 79, was admitted to the Morningside clinic in Johannesburg on Thursday afternoon. The nature of his illness is unknown, but Mokhehle has been ill for some time. Mokhehle declared himself unavailable for Lesotho’s May 23 elections because of ill health and old age. He […]
Mukoni T Ratshitanga The African National Congress Youth League goes to its 20th national conference in Johannesburg next week amid fears that it is losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the youth. Central to the criticisms levelled against the league is that it is only vocal on leadership matters within the ANC […]
Suzy Bell: In your ear It’s hard not to be impressed with East Coast Radio’s Newswatch team what with the catchy effervescence of the station’s news manager, Mary Papayya. When the station went commercial in May last year, Papayya was snapped up from the SABC where she served as an executive producer at Radio Lotus. […]
Tim Radford in London Suddenly the moon has become precious real estate: a kind of off-planet investment. Twenty-five years since two astronauts from Apollo 17 dusted their hands off and climbed back into a lunar module, Nasa scientists had peered at data from an orbiting spacecraft and found water at the lunar poles. Now a […]
Lizeka Mda: CITY LIMITS Six o’clock in the evening and there is no parking space left in the Old Edwardian Sports Club in Lower Houghton. Cars overflow outside the club’s gates on to Fourth Street, all the way to 11th Avenue. These are the premises of the Old Edwardian Society, prime real estate in this […]
Sharon Hammond Unknown to the rich and idle in Nelspruit’s version of Sandton, farm workers have established a small village and self-sustaining chicken farm in their midst, as part of a unique land project. Four workers at Hoogland Estates, which borders the upmarket suburb of Steiltes, have qualified for a share-equity scheme on the farm, […]