Facing the challenges of Aids may be too much for the medical profession, writes a children’s doctor at a large hospital I am an ordinary South African doctor working with sick children in a South African hospital. My colleagues the doctors and nurses and many other professional people are also ordinary. We do our daily […]
James Campbell Glue by Irvine Welsh (Jonathan Cape) Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting was about a bunch of daft lads (or sub-psychopaths) whose violence and amorality were supposedly explained by their origins in soulless Edinburgh housing schemes. They devoured drink, drugs and wee lassies by the ton. The one thing that inspired them was tribal loyalty: they […]
Niki Moore If the University of Zululand (Unizul) was a business, what happened there would be called a hostile takeover. Last Friday, Mangosutho Buthelezi was voted out as chancellor and Deputy President Jacob Zuma was voted in. Friday’s meeting of the university council should have been a fairly mundane affair, to discuss various matters related […]
Mail & Guardian reporter The Mail & Guardian is moving to consolidate its position as the newspaper of the intelligentsia and political classes with a major redesign of the paper to be introduced next Friday. The redesign coincides with our record-breaking circulation growth among South Africa’s high earners and intellectuals. The most significant growth has […]
Timothy Wood American notes It is common cause that swashbuckling corporations are gaining power at the expense of governments. But the reverse is true as shown by General Electric’s (GE) stuttering merger with Honeywell. Worse still, it is unaccountable bureaucrats who are gaining ascendancy. GE, the United States’s fifth-largest company with sales of $130-billion, won […]
movie of the week ‘Tis the season of the crowd-pleasers. That’s because it’s summer in the northern hemisphere, though we’re freezing down here. We’ve had Pearl Harbor, The Mummy Returns and Shrek; still to come are Evolution, Bridget Jones’s Diary and oh dear Dr Doolittle II. This week’s blockbuster, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider should do […]
Jay Parini On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks (Hutchinson) Sebastian Faulks has become an international sensation, attracting countless readers to his entertaining French trio, The Girl at the Lion d’Or, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray. Now, with a surprising shift of scene, comes On Green Dolphin Street. Rather as you do with a decent television […]
Neal Collins tennis Richard Williams is not your typical dad. He boasts that, when Venus and Serena were barely big enough to peer over the net, he paid neighbours to yell racial insults at his girls while they played. “You can’t wait for a situation to happen to get ready for it,” says the rags-to-richest […]
Journalists are, perhaps justifiably, notorious for over-estimating their own importance. Nonetheless, we believe that the meeting this weekend between editors and the Cabinet is of great significance to our attempts to develop a healthy and resilient democracy. There are corrections that need to be made on both sides if the media and government are to […]
Justin Arenstein and Mfanakaziwa Ndaba Mpumulanga Premier Ndaweni Mahlangu consolidated his position this week by purging four of his most outspoken critics from the provincial legislature and axing two unpopular MECs. The purge of the “Nandos Club” so called because they meet at a Nandos outlet in Nelspruit to allegedly plot against the premier is […]