The Sandton ratepayers’ revolt is gaining momentum as 10 businesses take the local council to court, reports Ferial Haffajee THE country’s most costly rates revolt in one of its richest municipalities – the Johannesburg suburb of Sandton – is now in its ninth month. And the protest has found a new battleground in the past […]
THE row between National Commissioner George Fivaz and Minister of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi is farcical and – entertainment value aside – intolerable. Sympathy must lie to a limited degree with the minister at the moment, if only because we share his frustration at the continued incompetence of the police in dealing with crime. […]
The Vatican has published an extraordinary document accusing the advertising industry of appealing to such motives as envy, status-seeking and lust. Belinda Archer reports ADVERTISING folk have always been partial to the odd bit of sinful behaviour – overeating, say, or even being a tad jealous of a colleague with a posher car. But, according […]
After a botched circumcision a little boy was made into a little girl. Sharon Krum reports on a case that has split the American psychiatric community in two THE year was 1964; the place, Baltimore, United States. An eight-month-old baby boy underwent a radical sex change to become a baby girl. When his penis was […]
Teachers’ unions are disenchanted with government measures that have led to an exodus from the profession, writes Philippa Garson THE writing’s on the proverbial chalkboard: tough times lie ahead for teachers left behind after 15 000 of their best have been paid tens of millions of rands to stop teaching. Many have breathed easy at […]
Wage moderation and consensus among businesses and trade unions have led to stable economic growth in the Netherlands. Mark Milner reports from Amsterdam IT is called the Dutch model, the Delta model, even, somewhat predictably, the Tulip model. Call it what you will, it has given the Netherlands a combination of low inflation, low interest […]
Johannesburg’s public defenders turn to gallows humour at the coalface of justice, reports Mungo Soggot THE stench of urine in Court 20 of the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court was so powerful that the court orderly reluctantly opened the large windows to the chilly afternoon air. The smell was seeping up from the cells below, from where […]
Judith Watt THE son of super-surgeon Dr Chris Barnard and a member of the Meerlust wine dynasty are to join Boss Models’s top overseas operation, swelling the ranks of the blue- blooded and beautiful strutting on world catwalks. Chris Barnard, who joined Boss Models’s Cape Town business last year, is to fly to New York […]
The exposure of alleged ANC spy Sifiso Nkabinde highlights the nature of the tension between George Fivaz and Sydney Mufamadi, write Mail & Guardian Reporters THE public spat between Safety and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi and national Police Commissioner George Fivaz is the culmination of old tensions around police inability to deliver in the face […]
Peta Thornycroft THINUS VAN DER MERWE (31), a policeman for 13 years, was killed in a shoot-out under moulting jacaranda trees in Kensington, Johannesburg, just after lunch on Monday. If it had been in the Gauteng school term, he would have died at more or less the same time as suburban buses bump along the […]