directorate Stuart Hess South Africa’s first black female gynaecologist, Nothemba Simalela, will become the new head of the national Aids directorate on World Aids Day next Tuesday. A senior lecturer in obstetrics and gynaecology at the Medical University of South Africa (Medunsa), Simalela replaces Rose Smart. Smart said she is leaving as director because she […]

Maureen Barnes Down the tube David Attenborough seems to spend his working life these days doing voice- overs for the work of other naturalists, which presumably is supposed to lend some sort of intellectual credibility to a production. On a mediocre production this could be said to be misleading to the viewer, and on good […]

Friday night: Dave Chislett Ten years ago, much against my will, I spent two hormone-fuelled years in Port Elizabeth completing my high school career. As a Johannesburg boy, recently transplanted to the coast, I hated the place. My nickname for it at the time was PE-nis by the sea. Now, my good friend Hagen Engler […]

Ferial Haffajee At the front line of the corruption battle in Gauteng, Barbara van Jaarsveld has bagged a rotten principal. Her quiet schoolmarm demeanour gives way momentarily to a victorious grin. The principal will be charged for renting out his school’s electricity to 10 surrounding shacks. “He ran extension chords from the school and charged […]

Without more aid nearly 300 000 people, now subsisting on leaves and roots, will starve early next year, reports David Gough from Xuddur The threat of famine hangs over war- torn southern Somalia, for the second time in six years. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says as many as 300 000 people are […]

Chiara Carter Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s brother is one of the missing African National Congress guerrillas whose fate the Truth and Reconciliation Commission failed to establish while probing human rights abuses committed at the ANC’s notorious Quatro camp. Commissioners at an in-camera hearing earlier this year questioned General Andrew Masondo, the former ANC Angola commissar, […]

Mungo Soggot A legal and political battle looms over the rights of South Africans suffering from asbestos-related diseases to claim compensation from British asbestos companies in United Kingdom courts. The claims promise a transformation of the lives of thousands of South African workers. But their lawsuits could be thwarted by legislation in Britain outlawing such […]

A degree of chaos was almost inevitable where the organisation of the 1999 elections is concerned. Its arrival is confirmed with the start of voter registration this weekend. The populace is now urged to rush out and register to vote in the district where they will be on election day. But, as election day has […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 11.00am. HOME Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi had an extremely close relationship with the notorious Bureau for State Security (Boss) during a decades-long collaboration with apartheid-era security structures, according to explosive in-camera testimony presented to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This testimony “leaked to the Mail & Guardian this week” was […]

Donna Block: SHARE WORLD Just when you thought it was safe for a little dip in the world’s financial waters it appears that those sharks of Wall Street, the hedge funds, are preparing a new feeding frenzy. Hungry after a three-month absence from the international investment scene, the funds are hunting for opportunities to engorge […]