A new White Paper outlines what steps needs to be taken to ensure victims of disasters will have speedy access to emergency assistance, writes Janet Love Yet another tornado charged through the Eastern Cape this week, leaving a trail of destruction and devastation in the Mount Ayliff and Tabankulu districts. The police station, the school, […]

Loose cannon Robert Kirby Let me be among the last to criticise that fine fellow, Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel. His is a thankless job simply because, when tossing the public coin, there are not only too many takers but all they ever do is squeal for more. Can you remember the occasion when any […]

Matthew Krouse Down the tube E.tv’s first News broadcast, last Sunday, seemed more electrifying than it actually was. It had the veneer of something urgent and new. But some of the more shocking images were old, and some of the language seemed hyped. To start, the upbeat logo music pumped in over a blue montage […]

CLIVE WILSON, managing director of the Zimbabwe Standard newspaper was arrested on Friday. This follows the release on bail of Standard editor Mark Chavunduka and senior journalist Ray Choto on Thursday after being detained by the military for a story about an alleged coup plot against the government. More to come. 21

David Beresford: A SECOND LOOK There is something gloriously tragic about the story of the Afrikaners’ search for a national identity and a home to call their own: the flight from the Cape, the jubilant discovery of the Nile (wrong stream, but what the heck) and their arrival in their garden of Eden, only to […]

NIGERIAN former military ruler General Olusegun Obasanjo has won a promise of support from key leaders of the centrist Peoples Democratic Party in his bid for the presidential nomination. Obasanjo said on November 3 that he wanted to run for the country’s highest office 20 years after he last held power, and will be the […]

Andrew Worsdale Movie of the week The concept of characters moving in and out of film and television screens seems to have become a distinctive new genre. Woody Allen’s fabulous 1985 comedy- fantasy, The Purple Rose of Cairo, had Jeff Daniels climbing down from the big screen, driven by his passion for a member of […]

STELLENBOSCH University’s Sunsat satellite remains earthbound after the ninth postponement of the launch by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration Delta II rocket carrying South Africa’s first home-grown satellite. Sunsat was to blast off along with payloads for the US Air Force and Boeing. The latest postponement was once again due to “adverse […]

Angella Johnson VIEW FROM A BROAD `Hey, Angella. Your homies are being slaughtered,” chirped the Mail & Guardian’s sports editor as the West Indies cricket team crashed spectacularly in the fifth Test. I detected a generous delivery of schadenfreude in his comment. He was not the only South African in recent weeks to have joyfully […]

JEFTA DUBE, sexually abused by former Zimbabwean president Canaan Banana while he worked as his aide-de-camp during the 1980s, petitioned the justice ministry on Thursday for a free pardon or remission of sentence. Dube has served two years of a 10-year jail sentence for killing police officer Patrick Mashiri in 1995. Mashiri called Dube “Banana’s […]