Paleo-tourism is the new buzzword after the discovery of the significance of ‘Little Foot’, report David Beresford and Eddie Koch In an office tucked away in a corner of the University of the Witwatersrand, a professor who looks disconcertingly like Albert Einstein can be found dreaming of a new form of tourism — a grand […]
Steuart Wright Public servants queue to place their bags on the conveyor-belt metal detector at Umtata’s Botha Sigcau government building. They wait patiently for the bags to emerge, unfazed by the fact there are no security personnel to check them anyway. It is part of the ritual of coming to work — in a building […]
The United States is putting pressure on South Africa to break diplomatic ties with Cuba, reports Stefaans Brummer SOUTH Africa is fast becoming a proxy battlefield for American policy on Cuba — but Pretoria’s diplomats appeared this week to be resisting pressure to toe Uncle Sam’s line on Fidel Castro. Department of Foreign Affairs representative […]
THE report of the Arts and Culture Task Group (Actag) released this week raises, among many other questions, the issue of representation. The cultural organisations which exist in our society, almost without exception, still bear the imprint of the apartheid era. On one hand we have bodies like the Federasie vir Afrikaner Kultuur and the […]
Rehana Rossouw Africa’s last colony, the Sahrawi Republic (Western Sahara), is battling for support from the South African government which, it was hoping, could play an active role in its struggle for freedom from Moroccan colonisers — who are applying pressure on South Africa not to do so. South Africa is the only country in […]
The Mail & Guardian is one of the very few newspapers in South Africa showing strong and steady growth. Sales for the country’s leading independent, quality paper in the last six months are up 7,7% over the previous six The release of Audit Bureau of Circulation figures is a time of hyperbole and obfuscation among […]
South African mercenaries have turned the tide of the civil war in Sierra Leone, reports Edward O’Loughlin Sierra Leone’s military government has been on a roll in recent weeks, driving rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) back from the capital Freetown and recapturing the vital diamond mining region of Kono. The change in fortunes […]
Non-governmental organisations are more important now than before liberation, argues Paul van Zyl A FORTNIGHT ago, President Nelson Mandela signed into law the Bill which will establish the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. A study of the process which led to the formation of the truth commission provides a fascinating insight into the functioning of the […]
Traditional doctors are coining it as the black business sector mushrooms, report Meshack Mabogoane and Eddie Koch The growth of black business in South Africa has reinforced another thriving economy — the informal sangoma and muti trade — as new entrepreneurs and executives resort to the supernatural for luck and to protect their cars, taxis, […]
Gaye Davis GOVERNMENT employees who blow the whistle on corruption or maladministration will be protected from reprisals in terms of ground-breaking legislation currently being The proposed Open Democracy Act contains a “whistleblower” clause, protecting government employees who reveal wrongdoing. The draft legislation — currently in its 10th version — marks a complete break with the […]