Mail & Guardian reporter A new “suspect” the Reserve Bank, custodian of South Africa’s currency and reserves is emerging in the quest to understand the rand’s nosedive late last year. Suspect number one Deutsche Bank, fingered by South African Chamber of Business CEO Kevin Wakeford in a letter to President Thabo Mbeki in January has […]

Your article “Public libraries strapped for cash” (April 5) refers to the need for goodwill and political will to find money to prevent closures of public libraries. The Department of Education is blamed in the process. The real threat to these libraries cannot be separated from a new “total onslaught” on the public sector that […]

A programme aimed at supporting previously disadvantaged commerce students is showing good results William Ramwell Education accounts for 40% of First National Bank’s (FNB) focus on coporate social investment, and the rest is spent on supporting health, community service and training, job creation, arts and culture, the environment and public policy initiatives. In education the […]

Jaspreet Kindra A violence monitor has highlighted “continuing low-intensity conflict and gross human rights abuses” in rural KwaZulu-Natal, warning that the 2004 election in the province may be no freer than Zimbabwe’s. University of Natal academic and violence monitor Mary de Haas called for the immediate intervention of the government, including the deployment of the […]

Will the real pop idol please stand up? Alexis Petridis Three weeks ago Will Young topped the British charts with the biggest-selling single in that country’s history. The show that spawned him promised to discover a pop idol, someone colourful, larger-than-life and slightly unpredictable Marc Bolan, Boy George, Madonna. Instead, we have ended up with […]

Gordon Igesund’s People’s Team need one more win to clinch the league title Ntuthuko Maphumulo Barring an upset of enormous proportions, Santos will be crowned Premier Soccer League champions this season, taking over from Orlando Pirates and giving coach Gordon Igesund his third title in the six years of the league’s existence. Jomo Cosmos have […]

The end is near for the delegates negotiating a peace deal at Sun City, writes John Matshikiza After a month and a half of dragging their heels and getting bogged down with grandstanding, showmanship and irritable nitpicking, the 361 delegates to the Inter-Congolese Dialogue hosted by the South African government at Sun City finally came […]

Senior African National Congress MP Peter Mokaba’s claims that the United States government gave $1-million to South African trade unions to distribute nevirapine in their structures was shot down this week by an NGO handling the donation, writes Jaspreet Kindra. The head of the US-based Solidarity Centre, Fisseha Tekie, said the money was being used […]

Jason Cowley (“Forgotten victims”, April 5) writes movingly about the plight of Germans at the end of World War II, the ill-treatment meted out to them and the calls for “normalisation”, including Edmund Stoiber’s obscene demand for an apology to the Czechs. Please note that Stoiber’s stomping ground is Bavaria, the cradle of Nazism. According […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Food and Trees for Africa, an NGO involved in “re-greening” the townships, launched the Thuthukani permaculture gardening project at the Thuthukani clinic in Ivory Park two months ago. The project was started by a group of volunteers working with HIV/Aids patients in home-based care. Their aim was to help themselves, their […]