Shaun de Waal Movie of the week Jack is a truck driver, accustomed to traversing large swathes of the dusty Australian outback. He’s also the author of a romantic novel, A Bird in the Hand, but he doesn’t want anyone to know that, because “blokes aren’t meant to write them”. He has made use of […]

provincial budgets Barry Streek South Africa’s nine provinces do not come cheap – their legislatures are budgeted to cost taxpayers R346,9-million during the current financial year, with R42,6- million going to the executive councils and R108,4-million to ordinary members. This means that 43,5% of the costs of the provincial legislatures are allocated to salaries of […]

Fifteen director generals have left office since June 2, but Khulekani Sitole, correctional services director general, is one who has miraculously escaped the chop. Howard Barrell, Barry Streek and Wally Mbhele report The Cabinet has been responsible for the wholesale clear-out of the top level of the civil service in the five months since the […]

Khadija Magardie A Cape Town-based advertising firm, Interactive Africa, is suing a rival firm for copyrighting infringement. The rival firm, according to Interactive Africa, copied an advertising campaign idea during a bid for a major potential client. The client, Dutch-based Internet service provider World-online, with its catching slogan “Freedom of Movement”, awarded the contract to […]

There is something appropriate about the African National Congress’s decision to endorse Pik Botha for the new board of the SABC. This is the man who sat in a Cabinet that fashioned the SABC into a crude instrument of propaganda for the previous ruling party. Many of the details of the National Party’s corrupt stranglehold […]

Chris Gordon One month after the Angolan army launched a limited counter-offensive against Unita rebels, the government has announced the capture of key towns in the rebel movement’s strongholds in central Angola. Unita’s military headquarters at Bailondo were extensively bombed a fortnight ago, but reports immediately afterwards said the Angolan army (FAA) was still fighting […]

Fiona Macleod Members of an international smuggling syndicate were arrested in Portugal this week in possession of 155 elephant tusks from Southern Africa, which they tried to sell to officers from the South African Police Service’s endangered species protection unit (ESPU). The syndicate, headed by two Portuguese nationals, used to specialise in truck hijacking and […]

Peter Dickson February 16 1857, said the teenage prophet, would be a day like no other. After the people had killed all their diseased cattle and left their crops to rot in sacrifice, the dead would rise. They would bring with them abundant cattle and food, drive the British into the sea, and herald the […]

Uncertainty in the markets is pulling private investors hither and tither, writes Shaun Harris Pity the private investors. They are being pushed and pulled from different directions and are clearly finding it difficult to take a view on where to invest their money. That seems the only plausible explanation for the trends emerging in the […]

Mail & Guardian reporter The ability to compare prices quickly and easily is one of the attractions of shopping on the Net. In the real world, you have to trudge between shops, trying to remember which had this or that item at the best price. But online, one store is a click away from another. […]