Mungo Soggot Central Energy Fund chair Don Mkhwanazi tried to crush government opposition to his appointment of Emanuel Shaw II with a string of threatening letters to the civil servant who raised the alarm. The Mail & Guardian is in possession of two letters Mkhwanazi wrote to Deputy Director General of Minerals and Energy Gordon […]
Njongonkulu Ndungane: UBUNTU When liberation came to South Africa in 1994, people rejoiced that at last there was freedom. Indeed, in the years just prior to the 1994 elections, we saw a surfeit of freedoms of expression that we had previously only known to exist in democracies like the United States. Not all these were […]
Belinda Beresford There’s something sensual about the feel of a fat wad of crisp new banknotes. The rippled paper is a small piece of attempted perfection which took a month to forge and contains dozens of security devices. All South African paper money is printed by the South African Bank Note Company (SABN), although the […]
Jack Schofield Plastic television and computer screens could be printed out by the yard using technology from Cambridge University and its development partner Seiko-Epson, a large Japanese manufacturer of computer printers. And because plastic screens can be flexible, TV sets could be hung on the wall and rolled up afterwards. The new screens are based […]
FRIDAY, 6.00PM: SHARES on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange staged a late rally after a dull day on Friday, much to the consternation of dealers who were at a loss to explain the recovery. The all gold index slipped 2,1 points to 742,7. The industrial index rose 69,9 points to 8187,2, and the financial index, 103,3 […]
Timothy Ryan: A SECOND LOOK The Minister of Welfare and Population Development has asked the Drug Advisory Board to formulate a drug masterplan for South Africa. This masterplan will ultimately direct the government’s response to the use, distribution, manufacture and cultivation of illicit drugs. The decriminalisation of dagga is one of the controversial issues facing […]
Stepping from the relentless glare of a Johannesburg summer morning into the cool darkness of the Wits Theatre is not unlike entering a secret, parallel universe. One minute you’re dodging a stream of sausage-factory suits hurtling along the pavement to work, the next you’re watching a man in a loincloth sweep his arms over a […]
Dan Glaister in London He played a priest in True Confessions and the devil in Angel Heart, but these blasphemous associations did not stop the Vatican approaching Robert de Niro to ask him to contribute to a CD recording of the poems of Pope John Paul II. But now the invitation has been withdrawn. The […]
Before you fly off to foreign shores, consider the cost of leaving home, warns Belinda Beresford With accountants taking overseas exams while doing their South African articles, and medical students reportedly planning to leave en masse, the sound of the packing of bags has become background noise to many South Africans. While many people don’t […]
Chris Gordon The Angolan ambassador to the United Nations, Franca van Dunem, has accused Unita of preparing for war. The crisis, occasioned by the rebel movement’s repeated failure to meet UN deadlines for completing peace protocols, came to a head this week with the government warning of a major increase in hostilities. A meeting between […]