Deon Potgieter BOXING When Musibulele “Hawk” Makepula was awarded the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) junior flyweight world title on Saturday night it was not a controversial decision, but a bad one. Although the likeable Makepula has the potential of developing into a bona fide superstar, he still has much to learn. Watching the bout at […]

Rail parastatal denies it will sell sidings to neighbouring farmers Mike Loewe Transnet has renounced plans to sell off many of its Eastern Cape railway sidings after the Mail & Guardian last week exposed how the sale could leave homeless hundreds of evicted farm workers living on the sidings. After several calls and a meeting […]

Movies via the Net could do more than hit your local video hire shop Jack Schofield Cliff Stanford has made one fortune by bringing the Internet to the mass market, through Demon Internet, and now he’d like to make another by using the Net to deliver movies. This week, Britain’s Redbus Film Group, of which […]

Scotch Tagwireyi and Heather Hogan The University of the Orange Free State (UOFS) has reintroduced apartheid-style rules in its male residences, by endorsing student demands to divide them according to race. The extraordinary decision followed several incidents of violence on campus, which were attributed to racial tensions between students. The problems mostly occurred in under-graduate […]

Charlene Smith Crime killed the corner caf. And made us part of global mediocrity. As a real caf society develops, and we all sit on pavements delicately sipping caffe lattes and double mochas, the corner Greek, the owner of the local “kaif”, has packed up and gone back to Mykonos or is now managing one […]

David Le Page No matter how long you’ve been laying the groundwork for your retirement, there’s always a risk that the government will charge in and deliberately or inadvertently stomp all over it. Fortunately, that’s unlikely to be the case with the budget for fiscal 2000. It does, however, introduce a number of measures which […]

Belinda Beresford The expectations of smokers, drinkers and drivers of large cars were all confirmed again in this year’s budget: yes, the sin taxes are going up again. Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel announced that excise duties on all tobacco products will rise with immediate effect. The government aims to keep the total tax on […]

Robert Kirby LOOSE CANNON The marrow concept of the “African renaissance” will be getting its biggest endorsement later this year when the first Trans-Africa Motorcade Rally gets under way. The Mail & Guardian is privileged to be the first newspaper to publish details of this enterprising event. The founding idea of the Trans-Africa Motorcade Rally […]

Dale T McKinley CROSSFIRE Is it a revolutionary change of course or merely a more overt expression of the predictable (if somewhat uneven) evolution of African National Congress’s socio- economic strategy and policy? President Thabo Mbeki, in his State of the Nation address, finally gave an unapologetic, institutional and public affirmation of the ANC leadership’s […]

Caroline Sullivan NOT CD OFTHEWEEK Tom Jones has spun out his “comeback”, which began with a gut-busting version of It’s Not Unusual on Jonathan Ross’s trendy Last Resort show in early 1987, for years, but has never quite overcome the novelty- oldster tag. People half his age flock to see him at Glastonbury, other artists […]