The contest for a new Free State premier has begun, but is bedevilled by anger and befuddlement, reports Rehana Rossouw NOMINATIONS from branches of the African National Congress for a premier in the Free State close today, but there is still little clarity about who is eligible to stand. Some branches are nominating deposed Premier […]

Bart Barnes ALGER HISS (92), the former State Department official whose 1950 perjury conviction for lying to a grand jury about communist espionage activity became one of the most celebrated and dramatic spy cases of this century, died last week in New York. He had emphysema. Hiss, who served almost four years in prison after […]

THEATRE: Glynis O’Hara THE first 15 minutes or so of Two Straight Queers seemed to confirm my worst fears, with in-jokes that couldn’t leap the ghetto’s perimeter fence. But all of a sudden it took off and I found myself laughing – really hard. A gay man, Bernie, is left R2-million by his uncle, on […]

Mail & Guardian Reporter TRANSPORT Minister Mac Maharaj kicked off a two-day conference with lawyers and interest groups on the future of state accident insurance designed to fuel debate on the issue by laying down the law and singling out lawyers who had attacked his proposals. In a manner described by attending lawyers as “pretty […]

CINEMA: Derek Malcolm `THE story that follows is about Minnesota. It evokes the abstract landscape of our childhood – a bleak, windswept tundra, resembling Siberia except for its Ford dealerships and Hardee’s restaurants. It aims to be both homey and exotic, and pretends to be true.” So says Ethan Coen, producer and co-writer of Fargo, […]

Glynis O’Hara QKUMBA ZOO’s song The Child Inside reached number one on America’s Billboard Club Charts this week. The chart reflects what is being played at most clubs throughout the United States. It looks like they could be South Africa’s most commercially successful musical export since Manfred Mann invaded the British charts in the Sixties. […]

David Philip Publishers are celebrating their 25th anniversary, writes RACHELLE GREEFF IF Paarl Mountain has a Taal Monument, the Werdmuller Centre next to Claremont station should consider a monument to David Philip Publishers – it can only beautify the amazingly unsightly building. DPP survived the old South Africa with its draconian censorship laws, book raids […]

THE United States’s case against Boutros Boutros-Ghali has never been entirely clear. He is said not to have been sufficiently vigorous during his secretary generalship in reforming the United Nations. He is said to have been ineffective in marshalling the world to deal with the succession of particularly searing tragedies that arose during his time […]

BAFANA KHUMALO talks to two young DJs who are making waves on community radio HIS name first cropped up at one of those PR junkets where rich companies spend an enormous amount of money to win over newspaper hacks with an appetite for expensive food. He is Zakile Dakile – shortened to Zak because, he […]

>From secretive parastatal to private-sector partner, the metamorphosis of the CSIR has been significant. New challenges of funding and resources lie ahead, writes Madeleine Wackernagel CONSIDER that the world’s top 30 companies together spend more on research and development than South Africa as a whole and you get an idea of the challenges facing the […]