Angella Johnson VIEW FROM A BROAD `Hey, Angella. Your homies are being slaughtered,” chirped the Mail & Guardian’s sports editor as the West Indies cricket team crashed spectacularly in the fifth Test. I detected a generous delivery of schadenfreude in his comment. He was not the only South African in recent weeks to have joyfully […]

There’s not much to laugh about in Zimbabwe at the moment, but there is plenty of material for comedians who are pushing the limits of free expression, writes Mercedes Sayagues I want to be a Zimbabwean policeman I want to join the riot squad I wanna kill a couple of workers I know I’ll get […]

Loose cannon Robert Kirby Let me be among the last to criticise that fine fellow, Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel. His is a thankless job simply because, when tossing the public coin, there are not only too many takers but all they ever do is squeal for more. Can you remember the occasion when any […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi reports that Lesotho’s fragile peace is at stake Lesotho is teetering on the brink of another crisis as relations among political parties in the Independent Political Authority (IPA) reached an all-time low this week. The impasse between the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) and opposition parties has cast doubts about the country’s […]

David Beresford: A SECOND LOOK There is something gloriously tragic about the story of the Afrikaners’ search for a national identity and a home to call their own: the flight from the Cape, the jubilant discovery of the Nile (wrong stream, but what the heck) and their arrival in their garden of Eden, only to […]

grows Wally Mbhele As rivals in the political debacle that is engulfing Mpumalanga mounted public attacks against each other – in the wake of a probe launched by the African National Congress into the affairs of the province – more damaging reports about ANC officials’ involvement in corruption were leaked this week. Documents in possession […]

Libby Brooks:FIRST PERSON You’ve got Mail, a romantic comedy, stars Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as bookshop owners who hate each other in real life but fall in love in cyberspace. Plausibility of plot and sex appeal aside, the film delivers one interesting contemporary comment: it is now as likely for a woman to rush […]

A new White Paper outlines what steps needs to be taken to ensure victims of disasters will have speedy access to emergency assistance, writes Janet Love Yet another tornado charged through the Eastern Cape this week, leaving a trail of destruction and devastation in the Mount Ayliff and Tabankulu districts. The police station, the school, […]

Matthew Krouse Down the tube E.tv’s first News broadcast, last Sunday, seemed more electrifying than it actually was. It had the veneer of something urgent and new. But some of the more shocking images were old, and some of the language seemed hyped. To start, the upbeat logo music pumped in over a blue montage […]

Dan Atkinson in London An infamous headline in a business newspaper is said to have reported the 1938 Munich Agreement thus: “Shares fall on peace fears,” and then there was the character in the film Reds who, asked what World War Iwas about, replied: “Profits.” The events of recent weeks prompt thoughts about the effects […]