With the relentless advance of the Zairean rebels, to negotiate or flee seem to be the only options open to the government. Chris McGreal reports AN air of doom has settled on Zaire’s beleaguered regime after the lightning rebel seizure of Kisangani and the insurgents’ threat to go all the way to the capital unless […]

Iden Wetherell AIR Zimbabwe, at the centre of a row last year over President Robert Mugabe’s habit of commandeering planes, flew into another storm this week as pilots intensified a strike for better pay which grounded the entire fleet. It couldn’t have come at a worse time for the airline. Internal management documents reveal the […]

ALBANIA’S plunge into chaos has become Europe’s second great tragedy since the end of the Cold War. And, unlike Bosnia, it has not been unexpected. The risk is not just to life and safety for its people, but to its neighbours in the southern Balkans. This time there is no excuse for shoulder-shrugging on the […]

In Constitution Week, Mungo Soggot asks lawyers and academics for a scorecard on the country’s highest court IN the two years that the Constitutional Court has sat in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, the streets of nearby Hillbrow have deteriorated into some of the nastiest stretches in the city. The court’s neighbour to the east, the Hillbrow morgue, […]

Hang on to that tatty old pair of jeans lying around – one day Levi Strauss may just pay a fortune for them, writes Mark Tran in New York IT may seem excessive to pay $25 000 for a tatty pair of jeans, but the pair in question are no ordinary Levi’s. They date back […]

Deputy President Thabo Mbeki prepares his office for the presidency with a crack economic and strategic team, reports Marion Edmonds DEPUTY President Thabo Mbeki is poised to tighten his grip further on the presidency, setting up a crack squad in his office to oversee every influential government function. The Mail & Guardian established this week […]

Martin Woollacott WHEN little Paul Dombey asks: “Papa! What is money?” his father mentions guineas, shillings and halfpence. “I don’t mean that, Papa, I mean what’s money after all?” “What is money after all!” Dickens has Mr Dombey reply, backing his chair a little, “that he might better gaze in sheer amazement at the presumptuous […]

With the competition of such high quality, the right tactics will be vital if South Africa’s teams are to do well at the cross- country championships ATHLETICS: Julian Drew IT seems like only yesterday that South Africa’s finest middle-distance athletes first put their reputations on the line in what is widely regarded as the toughest […]

The Ministry of Labour plans to take tough action if any officials are implicated in the Western Cape training programme scandal, reports Rehana Rossouw A CAPE company training unemployed and unskilled workers may have used fake identity books to defraud the Western Cape Department of Labour of more than R1- million. The department uncovered the […]

FINE ART: Suzy Bell IT was love letters that sparked his affair with art. Glorious love letters, whose envelopes were so highly beautified he could only just squeeze in the name and address of his lover. Some of these original envelopes – from bygone days when stamps cost two cents each – are on show […]