When other black artists of his generation went abroad, he remained in South Africa to make his name GEORGE PEMBA George Milwa Mnyaluza Pemba, one of the pioneers of painting among South African black artists, has died. Pemba, who was born in Korsten Village, Port Elizabeth, in 1912, attended the Van der Kemp Mission Primary […]
Jeremy Cronin The key achievement of the South African Communist Party through the 1990s has been to rethink the communist project, neither abandoning nor being complacent about our legacy. We have carried through this rethinking, not as an intellectual curiosity, but in the midst of making ongoing, sometimes decisive, contributions to one of the great […]
Paul Kirk Joe Modise, the former minister of defence and one of the figures central to the multi-agency probe into corruption in South Africa’s R50-billion arms deal, had a six-bedroom mansion constructed partly at the expense of state-owned armaments company Denel which operates with taxpayers’ money. This week the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions confirmed […]
Nawaal Deane The Road Accident Fund has watered down its controversial plans to require its legal representatives to hire only black professionals. This follows a Mail & Guardian report in June on the fund’s affirmative action policy, instructing law firms acting on its behalf to avoid using white advocates to defend their cases. The fund […]
l Only share identity information when necessary. Credit card numbers should never be given over the telephone unless you have initiated the call. Same goes for the Internet. l Beware of “shoulder surfers” who swipe your bank card number while peering over your shoulder at cash machines. l Make sure your letter box is secure. […]
Mail& Guardian reporter The Joubert Park Public Art Project (JPP) is hosting a major multi-disciplinary exhibition and series of events at the Johannesburg Art Gallery and Joubert Park, which will run from October 13 until the end of December. With the focus on “public art” the JPP aims to address and engage the conditions, changes […]
Bluetooth is set to revolutionise handheld computing, reports David Shapshak ‘So what’s the big deal?” a friend asked when I phoned him excitedly from a handheld digital organiser. Making a phone call from a personal digital assistant (PDA) may seem neither here nor there in the age of almost global cellphone coverage, hence his lack […]
The council responsible for evictions in Bredell, Kempton Park, may have failed to comply with the law Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The Ekurhuleni Metro Council, formerly the Benoni City Council, appears to have been illegally demolishing shacks and evicting squatters on the East Rand in Johannesburg. And one of the companies the council hired to […]
This month the South African Communist Party celebrates its 80th anniversary. Two SACP leaders and a political analyst examine the party’s past and the history of communism Tom Lodge History shows us that communist parties can thrive in liberal social democracies. Before World War II, the most formidable communist party in Eastern Europe was in […]
The United Nations panel on the environment is currently discussing world climatic changes in Bonn, but are its premisses appropriate? comment Tim Patterson and Tom Harris Apocalyptic visions of the future are nothing new. For centuries, many of the world’s leading thinkers have predicted imminent catastrophe unless we radically changed our ways. Although most of […]