Chris Roper When Arno Carstens, the dynamically imperious lead singer of The Springbok Nude Girls, leans into his microphone and tells his adoring fans, “Let’s make this the year we say `Fuck South African music – and enjoy it!’” you know you’re witnessing a sea- change in local music as well as an erotic double […]

Tom Quoin : Architecture As we recover from the season of ritual ceremony, let’s glance at one of the ways we celebrate what stands all about us – buildings. It’s heartening to realise that even in Egoli – the tense, unbending Jo’burg – some architects have thought to include relief carvings or sculpted castings in […]

Andy Duffy Five of the Free State’s top education officials have been suspended, badly hampering the province’s management of state schooling. The province, which last week fired education MEC Mxolisi Dukwana, has already seen a stream of old-guard senior officials quit over the past year, including four directors and deputy directors who went in December. […]

At a time when the United States and its allies appear headed for another futile war against the seemingly indestructible Saddam Hussein of Iraq, we welcome the statement by President Nelson Mandela opposing a strike on Iraq. The US’s justification of its stance is well-rehearsed: Saddam is an untrustworthy dictator with a track record in […]

John Grobler Muckraking for fun and profit As a newspaperman for some 40 years, Windhoek Observer editor Hannes Smith is no stranger to controversy or to charges of contempt of court – he has had more of those laid against him than he cares to remember. Controversy has always been the middle name of his […]

Andy Duffy Cape Town City Council has pulled the plug on the car-watch scheme it set up in front of its headquarters, after a flood of complaints that its parking attendants were harassing and robbing motorists. The scheme, piloted early last year and running formally since December, was canned last Friday after the council decided […]

Werner Menges An ambitious attempt to clean up an apartheid eyesore has landed Namibia’s former housing minister – the winner of a United Nations housing award – and top officials in the Ministry of Housing in the largest corruption trial since independence. The Windhoek High Court heard evidence about confused responsibilities, denials and disregard for […]

Managed currency funds provide limited-risk offshore investments, writes Dan Atkinson from London As the turmoil on the currency markets abates, there can still be few easier places to make or lose a million. Novice investors are ill-advised to take a ride on roller-coastering foreign exchanges. But managed currency funds will allow the adventurous to play […]

Mail & Guardian reporters Hollywood loves a spectacle – and a spectacular blockbuster goes straight to its heart. That’s why Titanic, the most expensive movie ever made and also a huge hit, has matched the record for the most Oscar nominations (14). That’s a tie with 1950’s All About Eve, though Titanic is beginning to […]

Lynda Gledhill While a nurse’s job is to heal the sick, mending the profession’s racial wounds is proving difficult. The recently formed Democratic Nursing Association of South Africa is struggling to overcome the still-prevalent problem of racism, especially in private hospitals. “These places are still predominately white,” said the association’s president, Philda Nomusa Dudu Nzimande. […]