Chris McGreal in Johannesburg Foreign envoys attempting to bring an end to the civil war in Burundi believe it may be about to invade Tanzania to hit Hutu rebel bases which have swollen with fighters driven from eastern Zaire. Officials fear Burundi’s overwhelmingly Tutsi army will strike into Tanzania before long in an attempt to […]

Mail & Guardian Reporter THE Transvaal Bench will be on the light side next year after the Judicial Services Commission last week rejected five of the seven candidates gunning for the division’s four vacancies. The commission selected only two of the applicants: Ivor Schwartzman, SC, and S Snyders, SC, who will become the division’s third […]

JDFJones LAURENS van der Post, who has died aged 90, was a man of many achievements. He was an Afrikaner and, by long residence and cultural familiarity, also a European. He had been a soldier ‘ and a prisoner of war who discovered and preached forgiveness for his enemies. He was a farmer who became […]

DANCE: Andrew Wilson When you open the cupboard and Christmas comes tumbling out again this year, and you’ve had it with tinsel and tides of Santa Clauses, get to the dance factory at the Newtown Precinct for a double tot of the real thing, where over forty inner-city primary school children from Fairview to Fordsburg […]

Ben Turok is locked in dispute with fired staff, reports Mungo Soggot AFRICAN National Congress MP and economics guru Ben Turok has fired most of the staff at the NGO he runs, setting off an acrimonious labour relations wrangle. Staff at the Institute for African Alternatives, who were supposed to leave at the end of […]

Nick Varley HE IS one of the most fearsome men on earth, reared on boxing in the Bronx. She grew up in splendour, but has had a miserable time of late ‘ all that family squabbling and those tax demands. Now Queen Elizabeth II of England is to meet Mike Tyson, ex-convict and ex-heavyweight champion […]

Ruaridh Nicoll in Kinshasa reports on the return of President Mobutu Sese Seko after months of convalescence in France EMERGING on to the steps of his chartered plane, Mobutu Sese Seko, in a leopard-skin hat, looked out happily on the country he has pillaged for 30 years. He was greeted by an enormous roar. Thousands […]

Ann Eveleth With the first anniversary of last year’s Christmas Day floods in Pietermaritzburg looming, much remains to be done to prevent a repeat of the tragedy that cost 169 lives and left nearly 6 000 families homeless. And the National Disaster Relief Fund, which has already spent its R14,7-million budget for the year, will […]

After years of civil war, Mozambique’s hydro-electric plant is being refurbished for R575-million. Max Gebhardt reports For nearly 12 years, as civil war ravaged our eastern neighbour, five massive hydro-electric generators, with the power to light up a small city, have been sitting idle ‘ waiting for the moment when they could return to operation. […]

Your front-page headline ‘Top firms in huge medical aid scam’ (December 13 to 19) is not really news. The whole medical aid business is one huge scam. Why should anyone be forced to help pay for the sleeping-pill and Prozac addictions of others? And why should anyone have to pay for the consequences of the […]