era Mail & Guardian reporters The past took on the future. Like a dying man who knows his time is nearly up, the 20th century picked this moment to have one last flourish – for old time’s sake. It had some scores to settle, some unfinished business to complete. Next year would be too late: […]

I have been a regular reader of your newspaper since it began and many are the pages from it which have been stapled to the walls of my multicultural classrooms. You consistently present alternative positions to generate debate and discussion. Over time, though, questions arise for which we don’t appear to be able to find […]

LOOSE CANNON: Robert Kirby Despite the seasonal rush, it arrived just in time to top-up their Christmas hampers. From humble purse-snatcher, through rapist, murderer, fraudster and paedophile, to international car-hijack operative, the members of the South African criminal community are fair yowling with yuletide gratitude as they welcome yet another priceless gift brought them by […]

A hard-hitting exhibition in Rotterdam examines South Africa’s built environment. Ferial Haffajee was there The landscape of the next millennium in South Africa will overwhelmingly be the landscape of an apartheid past. The physical form of this new country is yet to be made. Now and for the next years it will remain a space […]

Stuart Hess In 10 years’ time traditional herbalists, faith healers and bone throwers could be examining patients who are admitted to public hospitals. In terms of new proposals before government, traditional healers will have to register with an association, which could eventually see them plying their trade at institutions such as Groote Schuur, Chris Hani […]

There is nothing like the stroke of a pen to lighten a presidential load. United States President Bill Clinton not only lit White House intern Monica Lewinsky’s fire, he was also every cartoonist’s dream come true. A plethora of phallic symbols was sketched, like Zapiro’s version of Airforce One. One US cartoonist went for the […]

currency Martin Walker in Brussels looks at what the coming year holds in store for Europe The last year of the millennium is for Europeans the first year of the new order. Everything changes, starting with the birth of the single currency and the launch of the German presidency of the European Council. If the […]

At the age of 102, Sholipi Mbutu has outlived all but one of her children, writes Swapna Prabhakaran Not many people remember Sholipi Mbutu’s name. At 102, she’s been an old woman for so long, everyone calls her Gogo. Mbutu lives with her daughter in a tiny house 40km from the coastal town of Kwambonambi, […]

A FIVE-year-old girl who went missing on a farm near Porterville in the Western Cape on Sunday was found on a neighbouring farm on Thursday. She apparently spent four nights on her own in the bushes next to a river. After searches by farm workers and police failed, two brothers on a neighbouring farm found […]

Andy Capostagno Cricket The West Indies lost the second Test so badly that logic dictates the only way is up. But cricket is not always a logical game, even if it is sometimes extremely predictable. There has been talk of regeneration, but it would take an optimist of Pollyanna proportions to believe that the third […]