BORIS YELTSIN has blundered into new danger by his inept resolution of the Kremlin power struggle. Security chief General Alexander Lebed may be shrouded in darkness, but so are those who are attacking him. Lebed has at least brought a sort of peace to Chechnya. His principal opponent, Interior Minister General Anatoly Kulikov, had brought […]

FIGHTING spread in eastern Zaire this week with new raids on villages and refugee camps north of Goma, amid growing evidence of a co- ordinated strategy to drive Hutu extremists away from Rwanda’s border. Several dozen people were reported killed and tens of thousands more added to the wave of refugees. The latest attacks were […]

IT is time the African National Congress provided South Africa with a fresh dose of democracy. It is time to elect a president. Despite the country’s impressive start in the democratic tradition, the ideal has been flagging recently. The abrupt expulsion of Bantu Holomisa from Parliament has underscored the weakness of the party list as […]

A new research institute aims to make South African wines the toast of the world, writes Lesley Cowling PROFESSOR Sakkie Pretorius and his family had started packing, getting ready to move across the world. He’d been offered a dream job – head of a big research institute in New Zealand, where he would have the […]

SO when is it not wet and windy in Cape Town? I was about to abandon myself to the elements and head for the nearest Battery 9 gig when a pair of headlights split the night. I straighten out. My thumb, by now used to its role as travel agent, upright. The car slows down […]

Simon Hattenstone talked to Joe Menell and angus Gibson, the men who made the extraordinary filem Mandela, now on circuit. DO you believe film-makers can change the world? Jo Menell: Definitely. If not change the world, at least wake people up, give them something to think about. Angus Gibson: I’m not sure films change the […]

Despite numerous setbacks, the TNDT is making steady headway, reports Madeleine Wackernagel WHEN Eric Molobi, chairman of the Kagiso Trust Investment Company, took on the task of running the Transitional National Development Trust (TNDT), even this veteran of the struggle was not prepared for the battle ahead. Delays in setting up the trust and frustrations […]

David Beresford NELSON MANDELA’S pledge to uncover the “truth” of the 1986 Samora Machel air crash highlights the unsatisfactory outcome of the Margo Commission of Inquiry which blamed the tragedy on pilot error. The inquiry was flawed by the refusal of the Mozambican and Russian governments to exercise their right of representation as well as […]

Accusations are flying over the actions of a minority shareholder in the Perskor arbitration, writes Max Gebhardt DEEP within the stack of legal documents presented to former judge Mervyn King, for arbitration in the multi-million rand acquisition of Kagiso Publishers by Perskor, are a number of affidavits outlining alleged attempts to “greenmail” Rand Merchant Bank […]

This week’s Khotso House revelations catapault Archbishop Tutu’s Truth Commission Into confrontation with PW Botha. By Mail & Guardian reporters GOVERNMENT law advisers are searching for precedents to establish whether PW Botha could face a jail term if he defies a subpoena to testify before the truth commission. President Mandela’s office is already bracing itself […]