Anton Harber reviews the progress of the new South Africa now that it has grown from babyhood to become a toddler Six hundred days is not an awfully long time. A baby of that age — 20 months — might just be starting to use simple words, and would only recently have started to walk. […]

THE ARTS British novelist Kingsley Amis (73) Actor Jeremy Brett, the definitive Sherlock Novelist Bridgid Brophy (66) Science fiction author John Brunner (60), grandfather of cyberpunk, of a stroke Avant-garde jazz trumpeter and composer Don Cherry (58), of liver failure Actor Elisha Cook (91) — the trigger-happy kid in The Maltese Falcon Canadian author Robertson […]

Marion Edmunds looks at how the political parties survived the year and the local This year has proved South African voters prefer the devils they know. Society may be in the throes of social change, but the electorate has hung on doggedly to the politicians it elected on April 27 1994. The local government elections […]

Mail & Guardian reporter For some, acknowledging the terrible deeds committed by the custodians of law and order in south Africa has been a painful process. To discover tax payers’ money had been secretly used to fund a civil war. And that the Christian Government had repeatedly lied when questions were asked both inside and […]

‘ The Russian Federation does not need a sharp political turn … You must not turn the wheel sharply on a big ship. Nothing good came from the fact that the country turned sharply to the right. ‘ — Russian Federation Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, as his party led the poll ‘ No, and […]

South Africa has 11 official languages, but we need a new language to capture the soul of the new Constitution, writes Etienne MureinikResponding to the just published working draft of the final Constitution, Bafana Khumalo regrets the lack of “phrases that roll easily off the tongue of a voice artist” (Mail & Guardian, December 1, […]

Wits could take a leaf from UCT’s book on managing transformation, writes Philippa THE embattled vice-chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand must be glancing enviously from his turbulent empire to that picture of tranquillity nestling in Table Mountain’s aprons — the University of Cape Town. As Wits struggles to contain the crisis around accusations […]

Vuyo Mvoko THIS week’s two-hour work stoppages, pickets and blockades at parastatals marked for privatisation — though weak in impact — portend a difficult relationship ahead for labour and the ANC-led government. For organised labour the events “marked the beginning of a process of mobilisation against privatisation”, a policy the Congress of South African Trade […]

This year, the greens have incurred the wrath of rural communities who put economic development above environmental conservation, writes Eddie Koch IT has become a truism to say that struggles to protect the environment have, in recent times, created some of the rainbows that now cross class and racial divisions in South Africa’s social landscape. […]

The planned boycott of Shell filling stations didn’t have much effect, but activists are still hopeful of getting support for their campaign, writes Rehana Rossouw SHELL South Africa has emerged from this week’s two-day boycott of its 850 filling stations as an untouchable company — not the first time a call for action against Shell […]