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 […]

The Mail & Guardian announces two new features. From this week we are launching a new political column, Crossfire, which is to be written on a rotational basis by some of the leading commentators in the country. In the first Crossfire, Jeremy Cronin asks under what conditions a merger between the African National Congress and […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Tony O’Reilly spends as he earns – liberally. When the estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis came under the hammer at Sotheby’s two years ago, O’Reilly paid $2,6- million for a 40-carat diamond engagement ring given to the former first lady by Aristotle Onassis. The former Ireland rugby star-turned-ketchup king was last […]

Monica Hilton-Barber : Slice of life The golden glow of goodwill between different South Africans may have dimmed and the initial dream of racial integration become more distant since the initial euphoria following the elections four years ago. But the rainbow is still bright and beautiful in many parts of the country. Number 23 Van […]

Mail&Guardian reporter THE third bidder for a private television licence comes under the spotlight today. Station for the Nation (SFTN) will be questioned on its bid which is led by Gladwin Marumo with the controlling consortium pulled together largely by the Thebe Investment Corporation, one of the country’s leading black investment holdings companies. That gives […]

football Alex Duval Smith In a world where a single transfer fee for a top football player could save the economy of a small country, it seems almost inconceivable for one of the poorest nations on the planet, Burkina Faso, to be organising a major soccer championship. But as the African Nations Cup play-offs gather […]

FRIDAY, 12.00NOON: SOUTH Africa’s Wayne Ferreira continued his revival at the Dubai Open on Thursday with a tense and hard-fought second-round victory over powerful New Zealander Brett Steven. World No 50 Steven got the match off to a cracking start, conceding only three points on serve and breaking Ferreira twice in the first set. But […]

Maria McCloy The Independent Broadcasting Authority seems to be taking a more softly-softly approach with Radio Islam. This week the Lenasia-based community station was given another 30-day temporary licence. The IBA said the licence has been granted to enable Radio Islam to continue broadcasting over Haj, the time when Muslims make the annual pilgrimage to […]

Global climate change is spawning deadly epidemics in Africa, writes Fred Pearce For the second time in six months, the world is glimpsing the consequences of escalating climate change. After triggering the choking havoc of smoke from Indonesian forest fires last autumn, the worst El Nio for 50 years has in the past two months […]

Ferial Haffajee Newspaper magnate Tony O’Reilly jetted into South Africa this week for a regular inspection of his African interests – no doubt he will also make time to heal an important relationship. President Nelson Mandela’s December attack in Mafikeng on foreign-owned media and its abiding white management could not have gone down well with […]