Shaun de Waal=20 CHEAP LIVES by Antony Sher (Little, Brown, R79,99)=20 SOME years ago, as the first buds of a new South African=20 dispensation began to open, much ink was expended in=20 speculation about what new forms our literature would now=20 take. It was assumed that the exigencies that drove the=20 apartheid-era novels of such […]
Access to cheaper drugs is one of the main benefits for patients in the new health care plan about to be announced by the Ministry of Health, writes Pat Sidley AFTER months of haggling, the medical gurus have finally come up with a new primary health care plan for the country. Although Minister of Health […]
The Kriegler Commission report on last year’s prison unrest went largely unnoticed, but it made some important recommendations on penal reform, writes Bronwen Manby THE long-awaited publication on May 5 of the final report of the Kriegler Commission, appointed by the President to look into the causes of the unrest in prisons following the election […]
Bronwen Roberts Thousands of Eastern Cape taxi commuters were terrified this week as they rode from one town to the next. Many sang and prayed to God to save them from the very people whose service they were using as a vicious war between rival taxi groups fighting over routes continued unabated. The slaughter has […]
Jane Rosenthal If giving books as presents is a matter of principle to you, then prepare to part with a fair bit of money this Christmas. But console yourself that relatively speaking at least you get value for your money with a book. If you consider that a ball of common string costs R7,50 and […]
THEATRE: Bafana Khumalo THE first time I saw Welcome Msomi’s Umabatha was over 20 years ago. The play was well-marketed to the township schools’ audience, and we paid the princely sum of 10 cents to go to the open-air Jabulani Amphitheatre in Soweto. For that we were rewarded with an afternoon out of the classroom, […]
IN The Island, two political prisoners on Robben Island perform a version of Antigone to their cellmates and their warders.
FINE ART: Ivor Powell THE Bag Factory studio complex in Fordsburg might one day serve as a parable of the new South Africa — a parable whose point is how unusual normality is in this curious country of ours. The Bag Factory has no real agendas. It provides studio space for professional artists, and just […]
EYEWITNESS: Mgcobo Ngxukume When I arrived at the rank in Umtata I heard a lot of talk about how the terrible taxi war was intensifying. The routes between Umtata, Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown were the worst hit, everyone was saying. As I was standing there with the other passengers, there was a lot of doubt […]
Last week, the Taiwanese ambassador to Pretoria was the only representative of the non-corporate world in a Mail & Guardian picture of the exclusive club of donors of R750 000 to President Nelson Mandela’s Children’s It is not unreasonable to assume that the ambassador’s generosity has something to do with the fact that his government […]