Vuyo Mvoko THIS week’s two-hour work stoppages, pickets and blockades at parastatals marked for privatisation — though weak in impact — portend a difficult relationship ahead for labour and the ANC-led government. For organised labour the events “marked the beginning of a process of mobilisation against privatisation”, a policy the Congress of South African Trade […]

Dear Nelson, I write to you in a great hurry and with much regret to tell of a terrible misfortune. Returning home recently from the Push-a- Bottletop Challenge Cup for Veterans at the Orlando community hall, I happened to see the postman struggling to push what appeared to be several envelopes into a drain pipe. […]

The indictment of the Malan 20 by Attorney General Tim McNally comes as a small victory to journalists who have fought for the expose of the Caprivi 200, write Mail & Guardian By 1995 many South Africans — force-fed over the years with a diet of reports about “third forces”, “covert operations” and “state-sponsored hit […]

Mail & Guardian Reporter TWO KwaZulu-Natal massacres in a week — adding to the highest weekly “political” death toll in the province in six months — contrasts sharply with a strong national trend of decreased violence. Police said 10 armed men attacked a kraal at Mvutshini on KwaZulu-Natal’s South Coast on Tuesday night, killing an […]

THIS has been a year of reconstruction, with damaged and divided urban areas getting the lion’s share of funding to implement projects designed by brilliant architects, planners and engineers — in Berlin, Beirut, Atlanta and Sarajevo, that is. Back home, things look pretty much the same as they did 12 months ago. Nevertheless, some practitioners […]

THE ARTS British novelist Kingsley Amis (73) Actor Jeremy Brett, the definitive Sherlock Novelist Bridgid Brophy (66) Science fiction author John Brunner (60), grandfather of cyberpunk, of a stroke Avant-garde jazz trumpeter and composer Don Cherry (58), of liver failure Actor Elisha Cook (91) — the trigger-happy kid in The Maltese Falcon Canadian author Robertson […]

The Mail & Guardian and its journalists won a string of awards this year. The English Academy of Southern Africa awarded columnist Bafana Khumalo the Thomas Pringle Award for television reviews. The Kaiser Family Foundation named journalist Pat Sidley Health Writer of the Year. Literary editor Shaun de Waal (left) was runner-up in the Leserskring/Leisure […]

Mail &Guardian Reporter KWAZULU-NATAL attorney general Tim McNally has two targets in his sights at the moment: Magnus Malan and other generals acussed of “hit squad” activity; and the Mail & Guardian, accused of defamation. McNally this week served summons on the M&G, claiming R250 000. This arises from articles published in the M&G on […]

Mail & Guardian reporter For some, acknowledging the terrible deeds committed by the custodians of law and order in south Africa has been a painful process. To discover tax payers’ money had been secretly used to fund a civil war. And that the Christian Government had repeatedly lied when questions were asked both inside and […]

The planned boycott of Shell filling stations didn’t have much effect, but activists are still hopeful of getting support for their campaign, writes Rehana Rossouw SHELL South Africa has emerged from this week’s two-day boycott of its 850 filling stations as an untouchable company — not the first time a call for action against Shell […]