Martyrdom would be the best way for the hostage-takers in Peru to secure change, argues Richard Gott THERE is a long and honourable tradition of guerrilla activity in Latin America that has ebbed and flowed over decades and centuries. Independence from Spain in the early 1800s would never have been successful without the innumerable guerrilla […]

redundancies THE Education Ministry is struggling to determine whether its drive to reshape state schooling has achieved much more than lose South Africa thousands of experienced state teachers and unnerve those who remain. Pressure is growing on the ministry -even from its own officials – to rethink the programme, which is supposed to redeploy teachers […]

Leon de Kock The Road Out by Dan Wylie (Snailpress, R34) Dan Wylie is one of those hopeless romantics whose CVs include, as a matter of necessity, extended detours into solitary, footloose travelling, shunting, ship- crewing and intermittent writing. Eventually these voyagers return to one of the points of departure, get a job teaching or […]

The proposed special deal for KwaZulu-Natal is a serious threat to the rule of law, says deputy chair Alex Boraine. Ann Eveleth reports KwaZulu-Natal’s “special amnesty” proposal would undermine the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s current amnesty process, promote a culture of impunity and pose a serious threat to the rule of law, the commission’s deputy […]

source Anthony Heard GEORGE heard covered Parliament for the Rand Daily Mail. He published a remarkably accurate account of the national Budget two days before it was delivered. I have never been able to find out from whom George got the information, although I have suspicions. The forecast was too accurate to have been totally […]

Two key media figures are at each other’s throats prior to the truth commission’s probe into the press, writes Jacquie Golding-Duffy The Freedom of Expression Institute and its chair, Raymond Louw, have come under fire for volunteering to assist the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in its investigation of the media. The Black Editors Forum […]

A senior South African journalist tells the story of how, as a young reporter in the apartheid era, he was delegated to act as a guide to Eartha Kitt, showing her around Cape Town. The reporter (white) was sitting in the back seat of a chauffeur-driven car with the great singer, lecturing her on the […]

DESIGN: Hazel Friedman THE undisputed winner of the Mail & Guardian’s Not the Pirelli Calendar Prize for 1997 is the calendar put out by the women’s support group, Powa (People Opposing Women Abuse). A collaborative project between the organisation and the Fine Arts Department at the University of the Witwatersrand, the calendarconsists of provocative images […]

The Dolphin Group has put together a deal that not only includes Mpumalanga’s prime resorts, but could also be at public expense, reports Justin Arenstein The Mpumalanga government has handed over its main natural assets to an unknown foreign company and has promised not to talk about the deal for 50 years. The contract which […]

Joseph Hanlon PEACE has not brought prosperity to Mozambique. Four years after the end of the civil war, the poorest country in the world is growing poorer. The reason is that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has ruled that annual inflation must be brought below 15%t before there can be significant post-war reconstruction. This policy […]