The new academic year has arrived for tertiary students, and with it come the ever more ominous sounds of a university system about to break at its financial seams. Universities are threatening to bar students with unpaid debts, while student leaders in turn promise mass action. Competition is fierce for bursaries, scholarships and sponsorships, many […]

Maria McCloy The multi-media revolution hit Khayelitsha in July 1997. That’s when a colourful tower came up, built by Rainbow Nation Community Towers Project. It’s a tower with a difference and it broadcasts programmes as varied as soccer matches, news, the DStv music show Channel O, SABC and M-Net as well as educational videos and […]

The IBA is keeping a close rein on Voice of Soweto, writes Maria McCloy The community radio station Voice of Soweto is pulling out the stops to comply with orders set down by the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA). Voice of Soweto is currently broadcasting on a temporary 30-day licence after a tussle with the IBA […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi Embattled Gauteng MEC for Safety and Security Jessie Duarte came out this week with guns blazing in a bid to clear her name from what she calls a “smear campaign” against her. In an exclusive four-hour interview with the Mail & Guardian at her Johannesburg home, Duarte said while she was willing to […]

Belinda Beresford Like all love affairs, it started with physical impressions. Intelligent brown eyes, long white coat, neat little paws. She wasn’t quite the watchdog I had in mind when I went to the SPCA, but I took her home anyway. About R250 bought me a vaccinated, collared, spayed and microchipped faithful companion. Less than […]

Madeleine Wackernagel : Taking Stock One subject has dominated the financial news in the past six months – the Asian crisis. The coverage has been phenomenal, with every economist and his neighbour wading into the debate, dissecting the causes, prescribing solutions. Not all the analysis has been correct, and much of it has been emotive. […]

Andrea Dworkin Monica Lewinsky is in a terrible, terrible mess. She’s being threatened by a very mean special prosecutor who has unlimited powers. And he plays hard ball. She has my sympathy. Of everyone who is a player in this game, she is the one who is going to be destroyed by it. We are […]

Lizeka Mda : City Limits A lifetime ago, couples would sit in Pioneer Park and smooch over a lunch of fish and chips, while mothers kept a beady eye on children mesmerised by a statue of leaping springboks. Ten years ago the park, wedged behind the Rissik Street post office and Joubert Street, still vaguely […]

Chris Roper When Arno Carstens, the dynamically imperious lead singer of The Springbok Nude Girls, leans into his microphone and tells his adoring fans, “Let’s make this the year we say `Fuck South African music – and enjoy it!’” you know you’re witnessing a sea- change in local music as well as an erotic double […]