Maureen Barnes In 1996 Paarl tour guide Cathy Raymond picked up a small group of American tourists for a trip round the winelands. The visitors asked if she would take them to visit a shebeen in Mbekwene township. “I didn’t know how to find a shebeen,” said Raymond, “so I phoned Jongi Frans.” Frans, who […]

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 […]

Stewart Dalby Spending It Antique clocks belong to an area of collecting, like Impressionist paintings, coins and vintage cars, which crashed in the early Nineties. This was because they were bought for investment. Why grandfather and other clocks should have been sought for speculative purposes is curious. Antique clocks are quintessentially English. It was not […]

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 […]

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 […]

amnesty decision Wonder Hlongwa A man who ordered the killing of more than 50 people has been appointed a lieutenant colonel by the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) – before the amnesty committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has decided whether he will be granted amnesty. The amnesty committee will only rule on […]

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 […]

from the inquest courts Leading human rights lawyer George Bizos has written an account of inquests into the deaths of people who died in detention under apartheid. This is an edited extract from the book After its passage through Parliament in 1963, the detention without trial law soon claimed its first victim. On August 20 […]

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 […]

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 […]