Deputy President Thabo Mbeki was greatly angered when he discovered details of Robert McBride’s activities in Mozambique, writes Wally Mbhele Deputy President Thabo Mbeki was so much in the dark about Robert McBride’s undercover spying activities on behalf of government intelligence agencies that a special team of intelligence officials was dispatched to interview the diplomat […]

Marthali Brand : First Person `That’s incredible. I would never be able to do that.” That’s the first thing most people say when they hear that I am a volunteer at a care centre for children with Aids. The second thing is: “Isn’t it tough to know that those children are going to die?” I […]

After hundreds of years of research, the molecular spark that triggered life still puzzles scientists, writes Paul Davies In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, the monster is brought to life by a bolt of electricity. This procedure fitted in with the 19th-century view that living matter is somehow distinct from non-living matter, and that an organism […]

Sending a peacekeeping force is no longer an option for restoring calm to Maseru, as armed soldiers and civilians prepare to repel the force from the kingdom. Sechaba ka’Nkosi and Howard Barrell report Brigadiers in the Lesotho Defence Force have assumed effective control of the country following the complete collapse of the civilian and administrative […]

The United Nations last week called for urgent action to raise the living standards of the world’s poor after disclosing that a billion people have been left out of the consumption boom of the past two decades. In its annual Human Development Report, the UN said gross inequalities between rich and poor countries were getting […]

RobertKirby : Loosecannon I would like to express my gratitude to Kader Asmal for his good-natured response (“Kirby should look before he leaps”, September 11 to 17) to a column of mine in which I suggested he needed a wake-up call on the matter of the Dukuduku forest – or what is left of the […]

Julienne du Toit There are few things that strike fear into the heart of an environmentalist faster than high-speed industrialisation in remote, beautiful areas. Spatial Development Initiatives (SDIs) have been planned on and near some of the finest beauty spots. So the response of many environmentalists and environmental organisations has ranged between outrage and mistrust, […]

There was occasion for thanksgiving this week, on the release from Mozambique’s Machave prison of Robert McBride, although there is something of a puzzle as to who should be thanked. Not the African National Congress, few members of which turned up at Johannesburg International airport to welcome him home and thereby claim the credit. Under […]

Ferial Haffajee Emigration lawyer Hilliard Kassel is laughing all the way to the bank. He jokes that the only reason he stays in South Africa is because his skill in helping people to leave is in such demand. Based in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs, the bespectacled lawyer is at the cutting edge of the migratory wave […]

Donna Block : Share World Two nations united by history but divided by destiny, India and Pakistan are like estranged sisters fighting over the same man. They have fought three wars, two of them over the disputed region of Kashmir, and have displayed their nuclear capabilities. This long-running feud is affecting the stability and economic […]