Emanuel Shaw II may be the king of sleaze, but South Africa is not without its own homegrown sleazeballs, writes Mungo Soggot While discussing Liberian politician Emanuel Shaw II’s spectacularly corrupt track record in the West African country, a Liberian journalist based in Washington told the Mail & Guardian last month: “You must watch out. […]

The Electronic Mail & Guardian, the daily online sister to the print edition, won a Loerie design award for best Internet news site, beating almost 100 rivals. eM&G editor Irwin Manoim became the first journalist in the history of the Loeries to win the advertising industry’s most prestigious award. Antjie Krog was the joint recipient […]

Andrew Muchineripi : Soccer South Africa realised the dream of every football nation this year by reaching the World Cup finals for the first time, but a key figure behind the success will not be in France come June 1998. Clive Barker resigned as national coach last weekend following a disastrous showing by Bafana Bafana […]

TUESDAY, 5.30PM: FESTIVE cheer seemed to help recharge the JSE on Tuesday, where the gold index climbed another 19,2 points to 810,9 thanks to the advancing international bullion price. Gold shares have climbed 45,3 points since Friday’s close. The gold price reached $292,55 in London, with some dealers predicting that it could reach $300 before […]

Gwen Ansell Jazz ‘You know,” says Damon Forbes, “with all my artists, right up to now, I couldn’t tell whether any of them played a bum note.” This bluff philistine act might just fool you if you didn’t know who Forbes was. He looks the part: six-foot, rugby-player shoulders, ruddy face — the kind of […]

The powerful showing of former Mass Democratic Movement activists at last week’s elections for the African National Congress executive demonstrated just how keen the movement’s rank-and-file members were to ensure a balance of forces in their leadership. The “populists” — who dominated the top 10 rankings in Bloemfontein three years ago — suffered a severe […]

Local kids are into fashion, music — and are as racially divided as ever, writes Maria McCloy The 1999 election is nearly here, and someone had better start figuring out a way to get into the hearts and minds of young South Africans, because it’s estimated that by 2000 the under-25s will form the majority […]

Julie Burchill For me there was only one book this year and=20that was Andrew Morton’s Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words. The transcripts of the tapes she made are heart-breaking; hearty Sloane clich=E9s interspersed with cries of agony like something out of Samuel Beckett. The first paragraph of the first tape — “My […]

The fat jokes are flying at the moment, but tubby or not Shane Warne remains capable of destroying South Africa’s hopes of a Test series victory in Australia. Robert Winder reports The first thing you notice about Shane Warne, Australia’s celebrated leg-spinner, is that he looks like a bleached koala bear. Chubby, round shouldered and […]

Steve Morris : Rugby In the uncertainties that abound in the game of rugby, this country has managed — during a year which has had more than its share of trauma and perhaps less triumph than could have been expected — to formulate a new equation. There are four distinct sides to this: an administration […]