ALTHOUGH many white farmers have reacted with outrage to Derek Hanekom’s new Land Reform Bill for labour tenants, the draft law is neither new nor revolutionary. It is, in fact, based on regulations that are common in free market societies, writes Andra The Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Bill, published in the Government Gazette this month […]

Rehana Rossouw People campaigning for the new South African Constitution to promote a Christian state are political opportunists trying to reinstate minority baasskap, said African National Congress MP Carl Niehaus this week . Niehaus — who has a theology degree — was responding to the recent march on Parliament by several thousand conservative Christains demanding […]

Office of the President Dear Walter, How the world is changing. The thought struck me last week, when I was delivering the Bram Fischer memorial lecture and Joel Joffe presented me with my papers from the Rivonia Trial that he has had in safe-keeping for all these years. There, among them, were my notes for […]

Iron-age sites reveal some astonishing artefacts — and shatter some dearly held beliefs, reports Bruce Around the time William the Conqueror was gloating over his victory against Britain in 1066, Iron-Age communities on the banks of the Limpopo River were bartering gold and ivory with Swahili traders for glass beads from Egypt, cotton from India […]

THE South African National Defence Force’s claim that its refusal to employ people who test HIV positive is ”non-discriminatory” beggars belief. Not only does it violate the Constitutional principle that no South African may be discriminated against on the grounds of disability, but it also flouts the Guidelines on Aids and Employment issued by the […]

As South Africa scraps the death penalty, the ANC alliance is fighting to save the life of an American journalist on death row, writes Bruce Cohen The African National Congress, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions have joined in the fight to halt the execution of an American […]

THE hospitality industry has been shrieking ”foul” after the much vaunted influx of Rugby World Cup (RWC) international tourists to South Africa failed to materialise. Arguments vary, but the 50 000 figure originally bandied about appears to have shrunk by half or even more. The Federated Hotel, Liquor and Catering Association of South Africa (Fedhasa) […]

10th birthday: Ten Years of Front Pages.