Shaun Harris TAKING STOCK Pensions are an important and sensitive issue. A working person has a vision of what their financial position will be after they retire, and all too often that vision does not match up to reality when they reach retirement age. Retirement statistics in South Africa are depressing. For example, it’s estimated […]

Q & A Mpho Mutula, 22, co-presents South Africa’s first youth sex talk show, Jika Jika, on SABC 1, with Pule Hlatshwayo. Mutula, who grew up in Soweto, studied environmental health at the Pretoria Technikon. She has worked as an environmental coordinator and presented the late-night music show, Channel O. What is Jika Jika’s aim? […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Product: Psion Revo (32-bit ARM 710 Risc chip running at 36MHz, backed by 8MB of ROM and 8MB of RAM) Price: R3 500 estimated Psion, the British manufacturer of palmtop computers, this week unveiled the Revo, a smaller, cheaper version of its Series 5mx handheld. Even for a seasoned Psion user, […]

Peter Dickson A race war has erupted in the Eastern Cape town of Jeffreys Bay, after its mayor decided he did not want Nelson Mandela’s face in his office. Mayor Pierre van Wyk’s inauguration ceremony was boycotted by African National Congress councillors last week after he removed photos of Nelson Mandela, Eastern Cape Premier Makhenkesi […]

A new plan has been designed to deal with the problems that have rendered South Africa’s taxi industry uncontrollable. Scotch Tagwireyi reports As taxi violence and road deaths reach epidemic proportions, the government is preparing sweeping plans to revamp South Africa’s deadliest industry. The plan includes taking the country’s present fleet of 120 000 minibus […]

John Matshikiza CROSSFIRE The passion for revising our history in line with what we still tiresomely call our “new dispensation” is getting out of hand. It’s one thing to say that history must be rewritten to show what really happened in the course of our various national sagas. It’s quite another thing to try to […]

Ivor Powell Obituary It could hardly have come as a surprise to many when former Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere died in St Thomas’ hospital in London on Thursday, but many, especially Pan Africanists, were saddened by his nnnpassing. Nyerere, aged 77, finally breathed his last in the middle of Thursday morning after being described as […]

An Mpumalanga farm worker gave his heart to the land -and then his eyes, reportsEAaron Nicodemus A n Mpumalanga farm worker has filed a R1,47-million suit against three white farmers for a tear gas attack three years ago that has left him permanently blind. The suit, filed in the Pretoria High Court, claims for past […]

The Centre for Development Enterprise is committed to a strong role for the state in creating the environment for growth and development, says Ann Bernstein In his attack on the Centre for Development Enterprise (CDE) publication Policy Making in a New Democracy: South Africa’s Challenges for the 21st Century, Jeremy Cronin misrepresents the CDE’s conclusions […]

alien’ Marianne Merten The Aliens Control Act was used to arrest international fugitive and American embassy bombings suspect Khalfan Khamis Mohamed and deport him to the United States. Mohamed applied for permission to stay in South Africa pending an application for political asylum under the false name of Zahran Nassor Maulid. New York-based FBI representative […]