Eddie Koch The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) went into its Christmas recess a fter a one-year performance that was “quite remarkable compared to other truth -seeking processes around the world”, says an international expert. Priscilla Hayner, an international researcher writing a book on truth commiss ions in various parts of the world, says it […]

The Mail & Guardian’s Reporters take a look at some of the people who’ve been in the news – but whose fame has faded Former arts and culture minister Ben Ngubane was plucked out of his efficient national ministry after the Inkatha Freedom Party’s July conference to bolster the party’s provincial stakes. In keeping with […]

TENNIS:Jon Swift The revival of tennis has proved in a sporting season just what this country is capable of. From a base of minus zero a short time ago, the game has regenerated and is on the path back. The internal wranglings and factionalism — witness the unsavoury squabbles about the national manager at the […]

Madeleine Wackernagel Sometimes it does not pay to take advice. Everyone I asked upon arriving in Johannesburg recommended I exchange my travellers’ cheques immediately; little did I know I could have virtually doubled my money 10 months later. And as the rand continued to fall and economic gloom set in, the question I often heard […]

Calls to rid official medical research of racial stereotypes are being resiste d, reports Marion Edmunds The Health Department is resisting challenges to take race categories out of h ealth research, even though the ANC is committed to non-racism in the new Sout h Africa. Four academics associated with the Medical Research Council, including Dr […]

Vusi Mona Allegations that teachers are not being adequately included in discussions aro und South Africa’s new school curriculum, but are instead being caught up in c ommittees and bureaucracy, are dogging the vital rewriting process. The new curriculum, expected to be launched at the end of January, will be pha sed in by January […]

While 1996 was in many ways the year of big business, there is still space in South Africa for the little person … David Shapshak AT the end of every working day, as commuters stream out of Johannesburg’s cit y centre, Sewlinali Ngwenya packs pots of face cream and bottles of washing-up liquid into a […]

Lawyers say the cases dealing with the relationship between the Constitution a nd the rest of law were the most important.Mungo Soggot reports This was the year of the Rechtstaat, a state dominated by law: the country’s f inal Constitution was passed into law and in courts across South Africa the pr inciples it enshrines […]

Populist power: Halfway through the Government of National Unity’s reign, the ANC struggles to save face after the very public clashes among its leaders Stefaans Brummer EATING “a lot of meat with local people” in rural Transkei is what Bantu Holom isa did in the pre-Christmas days. This may not be as innocuous as it […]