Wally Mbhele interviews the Mail & Guardian’s newsmaker of the year, Robert McBride On a cold morning on April 9, South Africans woke up to what was to become one of the biggest thrillers of the year: the arrest of a senior government official in a foreign country. The official was none other than the […]

Things are looking up for the local film industry, writes Andrew Worsdale At this year’s Sithengi, Cape Town’s film and video market, Zimbabwean producer Joel Phiri said of South African cinema: “There’s a lot of cinema, but there’s not much on the screen.” Sithengi is, of course, one of the many strong initiatives that have […]

The ugly: Corruption Andrew Muchineripi South Africa scaled new heights this year by competing in the World Cup for the first time and achieving results that compared favourably with those of previous debutants in the football showpiece. A heavy loss to hosts and eventual winners France in the opening Group C game on a cold, […]

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: […]

The technology of the future may seem like science fiction, but it’s more than just talk, writes David Shapshak In the home of the future, people will talk to the walls. And the walls will listen. You’ll walk into your home, it will greet you, turn on the lights, select your current favourite music or […]

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 […]

JG Ballard:The most interesting novel of the year was Alex Garland’s The Tesseract, a moody psychological tale set in the Philippines, and an intriguing follow-up to his bestselling The Beach. Could Garland be the new Graham Greene? He is now 28, Greene’s age when he wrote Stamboul Train. Will Garland head for the Hollywood Hills […]

Much like a father at the birth of his first child, most politicians who reach the top flirt, at least briefly, with an image of their own immortality. And it is one of those irritating paradoxes of which religious people are so fond, that to live on beyond our own deaths a little, a large […]

dream of freedom Anthony Holiday If the year 2000 marks the border of humankind’s entry into a futuristic fantasy, then the year 1999 places us on the fringes of that reverie. It will be a year of a dream about a dream wherein we taste the first false fruits of the promised land of an […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pietermaritzburg | Tuesday 5.30pm. THE touring West Indies have drawn their four day match against South Africa “A” at the Pietermaritzburg Oval on Tuesday. The Windies were pushed along to 95/3 with a quick second-wicket partnership of 62 off just 80 balls before bad light stopped play as on the previous days. All […]