Millions of rands of taxpayers money is being used to defend apartheid’s generals. Anne Eveleth has been counting those costs and identifying the legal teams in the dramatic ‘Malan’ trial. OPENING the Durban Supreme Court trial of former defence minister Magnus Malan and 19 others earlier this month, KwaZulu-Natal Attorney General Tim McNally declared that […]

The Safety and Security Ministry’s gamble in banning traditional weapons paid off this week when IFP marchers left their pangas and spears at home, writes Eddie Koch A COMBINATION of firm policing and delicate negotiations with moderate groups in the Inkatha Freedom Party defied fire-and- brimstone predictions that the ban on traditional weapons would cause […]

An apartheid-era weapons smuggler could be extradited back home to Demark, report Stefaans Brummer and Rehana Rossouw DENMARK may ask South Africa to extradite a Dane who shipped East-bloc weapons worth millions of rand to apartheid South Africa, against the United Nations arms embargo and Danish law. Danish shipper Anders Jensen left Denmark for South […]

Since the first working draft of the Constitution was distributed in November last year, submissions have been pouring in to the Constitutional Assembly offering more proposals for the negotiators to work with, some of which have been ignored. These are the suggestions that have not made it into the Bill of Rights: 1) Freedom of […]

The launch of the National Housing Finance Corporation will open new avenues for finance, reports Karen Harverson At present, South Africa’s traditional financial institutions provide housing finance to just 30% of the total population (mainly middle and upper income earners) and non- traditional lending institutions are mushrooming to fill the gap. These institutions are targeting […]

Rehana Rossouw PROFESSOR Kader Asmal, chair of Parliament’s Ethics Committee, this week challenged Western Cape Premier Hernus Kriel to reveal full details of his estate disclosed in his divorce action. Asmal said Kriel had established ”crude new norms” by referring to President Nelson Mandela’s personal wealth. Therefore, Kriel’s role in private and public life should […]

Touring Zairean superstar Papa Wemba talks to GWEN ANSELL about fashion, music and his African roots PAPA WEMBA is quiet but emphatic. ”Please, I don’t want to talk about le sape. The French press have made a great noise about my clothes, but my first identity is as a musician.” Zaireans, of course, are great […]

THEATRE: Bafana Khumalo ‘KING Kong would have made it to the top,” declares a young, upwardly mobile black man as he throws out his collection of Temptations, Jimmy Hendrix and Jackson Five records, ”if only he had used the elevator. Instead, he drew attention to his struggle and ended up dead.” Another, dressed as a […]

Take one of the dirt roads that run off the main tar road to St Lucia into the dense undergrowth of the Dukuduku and visit one of the settlements that have been carved into the forest. It will be a salutary lesson in how the poorest of the poor in this country experience nature conservation. […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy A new national newspaper — The Teacher — is about to hit South Africa’s streets as the first independent monthly venture dedicated solely to teachers. The newspaper is published by the South African Newspaper Education Trust (Sanet), and the Mail & Guardian has been commissioned to help produce the publication which will be […]