Marthali Brand and Aaron Nicodemus Graham Armitage (63), radio, television and theatre personality best known for his roles in television productions such as The Diggers, Westgate and Shaka Zulu. Luis Argana (66), vice-president of Paraguay, killed by gunmen believed to have been sent by President Raul Cubas. Immediately after the killing, MPs voted to begin […]

Andrew Muchineripi looks at how 1999 treated local soccer It was a year that began with newly appointed Premier Soccer League (PSL) CEO Joe Ndhlela talking of a domestic set-up that would rival the best in Europe. It was a year that ended with Ndhlela suspended for bringing the game into disrepute after charges of […]

world Mail & Guardian reporters Apartheid: The big A, institutionalised after 1948 under the National Party government, ensured the separation of South Africans. Under this idiotic system whites, blacks, Asians and coloured people were sorted in an extraordinary array of slots. Rights and privileges were assigned on a sliding scale, with whites on top, blacks […]

1 Jomo Sono 2 Richard Branson 3 Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin 4 The Shah of Iran and the King of Albania 5 South 6 Enigma 7 De Voortrekkers, in 1916 8 Lech Walesa 9 Macao 10 Chris Patten 11 The Watergate 12 Luciano Pavorotti, Jos Carreras and Placido Domingo 13 Emily Hobhouse 14 General Fulgencio Batista […]

Paul Kirk, Nalisha Kalideen, Fiona Macleod, Marianne Merten and Connie Selebogo spoke to the parents of five children born this year ‘I want her to have all the choices she wants,” says 24-year-old Waleed Ajouhaar, a young father from gang- ridden Manenberg on the Cape Flats. His daughter, Aiesha, was born on November 19 and […]

‘He, which hath no stomach to this fight / Let him depart, his passport shall be made / And crowns for convoy put into his purse: / We would not die in that man’s company / That fears his fellowship to die with us” -Henry V’s Crispian Day speech at Agincourt, by William Shakespeare There […]

The idea of a poetry festival in Timbuktu has been wandering since 1992 in the mind of Breyten Breytenbach, poet, painter and member of the board of trustees of the Gore Institute. This has been shared with other poets and kept alive throughout several years. It finally took place before the start of the new […]

William Safire Bliss on bem cumendum fiusende geara, Eallum! That’s “Happy New Millennium, everybody!” in the language that the residents of England were speaking in AD 1000. For this back-translation, which I have jazzed up only a little, I am indebted to Antonette diPaolo Healey of the Dictionary of Old English Project at the University […]

Free international and local currencies may soon ride roughshod over conventional cash, suggest David Le Page and Donna Block Anyone who doesn’t cash in all his or her South African Airways (SAA)Voyager air miles by January 15 stands to lose them. Just kidding! But the sensation of panic this possibility offers gives some key insights […]

Marianne Merten The year started with a blast in Cape Town. On New Year’s Day 1999 a pipe bomb ripped apart a car in the V&A Waterfront parking, injuring two people, but resulting in no arrests. The year is ending with a bang – and confusion. Police and politicians sprang into action in November after […]