obituary Anton Harber David Astor popped into the offices of The Weekly Mail (now the Mail & Guardian) one Thursday morning in early 1986 as we were putting the finishing touches to that weeks edition of what was then a fledgling, penniless newspaper with a staff of five. Both parties were embarrassed: Irwin Manoim and […]

Gavin Foster With 24 South African titles behind him Alfie Cox is the most successful motor sportsman of all time in the country. Hes also pretty hot internationally, having finished strongly in every one of the four Dakar Rallies hes contested. With best results of third, fourth and fifth, the works KTM rider is now […]

Marianne Merten The Democratic Alliance-controlled Cape Town council late on Thurday agreed to give up three seats on its decision-making body, the executive committee. This came hours after DA caucus discussions following a court challenge by the African National Congress to prevent the election of former Western Cape premier Gerald Morkel as mayor. At the […]

REVIEW Gavin Foster Ford Mondeo 2,0 Ghia R183 000 The problem with being a car salesman today is that there are so few bad cars around. Many years ago buyers had limited choices, and the differences were clear cut. The guy who walked in through the door was a Ford man, or a Chev man, […]

Nawaal Deane The Office of the President has become embroiled in a dispute over outstanding debts of the South African Chapter of the African Renaissance (Sacar), a supposedly independent body formed to change negative perceptions of the continent. An advertising and events-management firm, Vukani Ma Afrika, has accused Sacar of dodging the payment of accounts […]

For many years people in this country and elsewhere pretended not to know anything about the daily atrocities perpetuated by successive apartheid governments on our country’s black people. They preferred only to concentrate on the reaction (often justifiably violent) of the oppressed people on various organs of the apartheid state and its support civil structures, […]

Sceptics have tended to answer any discussion about South African policy on the Zimbabwean crisis with the riposte: “What policy?” They appear to have been right. Eighteen months on, there is little evidence the government has set clear goals to avert a catastrophe. And there is even less to suggest our government has decided on […]

How a quiet French intellectual revolutionised British sporting culture Andrew Anthony Just after Arsenal Football Club won the Double in 1998, David Dein, the vice-chairman, filled out a hotel form for his team manager, Arsne Wenger. He wrote down his name and address, and then, in the section marked “occupation”, he entered “miracle worker”. One […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Khadija Magardie of the Mail & Guardian has won a human rights award for her reporting. The Human Rights Commission (HRC) honoured Magardie this week for her reporting on migrants, refugees and womens rights. Magardie was runner-up in the print media category for this years Duma Nokwe National Human Rights Awards […]

Glenda Daniels Peace between labour and business has replaced blood on the streets as ructions in amendments to the Labour Relations Act (LRA) are finally over. The amendments are now with the National Council of Provinces and are expected to become law in February next year. The most fraught issues negotiating retrenchments, the right to […]