General Sani Abacha is nothing if not blatant. Nigeria’s military ruler is not pussyfooting around like some other former-military- leaders-turned-civilian-presidents who organised elaborate elections with the trappings, if not the substance, of democracy. Abacha banned all political parties after seizing power in 1993. He subsequently legalised five new parties, all of which just happened to […]

Mail & Guardian reporter With foreign donor funding drying up, South Africa’s non-governmental organisations and their donors this week formed an agency to devise creative means to make them financially sustainable. The South African NGO Coalition (Sangoco), the South African Grantmakers Association (Saga) and the United Kingdom’s Charities Aid Foundation joined hands to set up […]

Ferial Haffajee The government has slashed the Independent Broadcasting Authority’s (IBA) budget by millions, and the organisation is haemorrhaging skilled staff who are leaving to avoid a troubled merger with the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Satra). Five departments are without heads and insiders say other essential staff are “looking [for work] or leaving” before […]

Clare Longrigg Profile What defines Denzel Washington as an actor? Some say it’s his intense, brooding stillness, others that it’s his laser-beam focus. Or his way of drawing words out of a deep gravelly well within him. But most people will tell you it’s the vest. In the noir thriller Devil in a Blue Dress […]

Njongonkulu Ndungane: UBUNTU Last week I was privileged to attend the launch of a new liberation movement: the Jubilee 2000 Africa Campaign. This movement’s main objective is the liberation of Africa from the chains of debt. The movement calls for Africa to begin the new millennium with a clean slate, free from debt, as a […]

Dave Chislett Sugardrive, leaders of the pack in the FNBSama Awards rock category, have been around for well over four years now. Probably best remembered as grunge masters who sounded uncomfortably like Pearl Jam, that is a phase that they would now rather forget. So far, they have released two albums, one EP and a […]

Andy Capostagno Cricket The horse-trading is over. We hope by the time you read this the squad to tour England will have been announced. And as ever, the armchair critic has plenty to bellyache about. ‘Twas ever thus. But since a good deal of the pleasure to be found in watching sport is connected directly […]

If the South African classical concert scene were truly Eurocentric, it would feature a lot more African music. That paradox is largely ignored in the confused debate around the future of our culture. While European concert halls currently offer hospitality to serialists, tonalists, aleatorists, minimalists, African composers and jazzmen all, the defenders of the classical […]

Who was Trevor Huddleston? Eric James It is remarkable that it was a white bishop whom the African National Congress asked to open their first conference in freedom in 1991. His return to South Africa as a hero, after an absence of 35 years, was the measure of the stature of Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, who […]

Andy Capostagno Tennis It’s just possible that you may have been lured into the belief that there is a tennis tournament going on in Johannesburg this week. Six of the finest players in women’s tennis are battling it out for $200 000 in prize money and you can witness all the action for as little […]