Vuyo Mvoko JANE HLONGWANE (28), her face exuberant with the satisfaction of pregnancy, smiled as she was asked how she felt now that she and her unborn child could take advantage of free medical care from the government. “Happy, really happy …” she said, in search of better words to describe her pleasure. Two years […]

PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela threw out a challenge in his opening speech at the ANC’s national conference in Bloemfontein this week.

Arthur Goldstuck Real-life snippets from the small-town press The best of `94 JANUARY * MICHAEL ABRAHAMS, charged with theft of TV sets, tells a Durban regional magistrate he was forced into a life of crime by his wife’s constant nagging. The magistrate tells him to stop blaming his wife, and gives him two years. * […]

Now that the struggle for socialism has been fought, won and ignored, Cape Town’s beaches are hot on the heels of shopping malls, writes Justin Pearce WHEN I was a laaitie, Cape Town’s beaches were for swimming. Or at least for building sandcastles, exercising the dog and similarly wholesome pursuits. The nearest thing you got […]

Vuyo Mvoko CLARENCE MAKWETU, re-elected president of the Pan Africanist Congress, has always drawn criticism from other parties, but none has been as harsh as the criticism he got from his own party during its congress last weekend. Although wary of inflicting more wounds on their party, delegates made no secret of their dissatisfaction. Fumed […]

The softest whispers are often the loudest. The meagre turn-out at the last official Day of the Vow commemorations was a thunderous condemnation of the state of the rightwing, reports Jan Taljaard AT the end of a year of turmoil, trauma and intimations of volkstaat born from apocalyptical destruction, all that remained on December 16 […]

The ANC conference hammered home to delegates that power comes hand-in-hand with responsibility, writes Gaye Davis ANC DELEGATES may have left the organisation’s 49th national conference more united and motivated than ever before — but the coming months will prove no easy walk. In a sense, the ANC has bought itself some time: grassroots delegates […]

The government is still basking in the afterglow of the elections. It has delivered many bold ideas — but nothing concrete yet. Anton Harber reports

The only method of transaction that makes sense in South Africa is the introduction of Smart cards, reports Jacques Magliolo THE 1990s has been called the electronic age by computer experts, while economists and politicians alike have excitedly hailed the coming of the global village. Yet as much as 80 percent of all South African […]