Kenyan scientist Joyce Poole, an expert on elephant behaviour, comments on the recent kidnapping of baby elephants from Botswana As a scientist who has spent two decades studying the social behaviour and vocal communication of elephants, I have been asked to comment on the capture of 50 baby elephants in the Tuli Block, Botswana. It […]

Will Hutton A Second Look Ever since the financial crisis erupted in Thailand last June, the consensus view in the West has consistently misunderstood and played down the dimensions of what is now the most serious threat to the world economy since World War II. The calamitous misdiagnosis has reinforced the West’s leaders in their […]

Robert Kirby: Loose cannon I hope this isn’t too naive a question, but do we still have a minister of environment? I seem to recall that Pallo Jordan was in charge of that area. The last I heard of him was when he gallantly saved some rare butterflies from being wiped off the planet in […]

Tim Radford Japanese and Irish researchers have begun to build a virtual guinea pig – a computer code version of a human who would be used to test the effects of powerful new drugs. The project is called Psudo, which stands for parallel simulation of drug release code. But it is likely to be dubbed […]

Many thousands of women undergo plastic surgery to alter their looks, but when Orlan does it, it’s called art. Alex Dodd reports `In the future we will change our bodies as easily as we change our hair colour,” says radical French performance artist Orlan, currently in Johannesburg. She is participating in a conference at the […]

Ann Eveleth and Khareen Pech South African troops could soon enter the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo as part of a 30 000-strong international peacekeeping force tasked to end the month-old conflict. The planned emergency force – mooted during a series of crisis talks in Durban this week – would draw together a combined total […]

Michael Finch Commonwealth Games Dope tests on lawn bowlers? Believe it. That’s how serious the South African team is taking its participation in the Commonwealth Games starting in Kuala Lumpur next week. Despite 13 medal-melting withdrawals, including athletics gold medal certainty Llewellyn Herbert, the team will travel to their second Commonwealth Games almost sure to […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Employees who are fed up with the nonsensical vocabulary and endless meetings of the modern workplace have found a way to undermine both with a new pastime: Buzzword Bingo. Instead of numbers, bingo cards are filled with the platitudes of business speak – terms such as “add value”, “going forward”, “synergy”, […]

David Sharrock in Zahara de los Atunes, Spain The rich, beautiful and powerful of Spanish society have chosen this wild corner of the Costa de la Luz, on the Atlantic side of the Rock of Gibraltar, as this summer’s place to see and be seen. But by night the beaches play host to a desperate […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Freetown | Friday 8.30PM. THE rebel leader who instigated Sierra Leone’s civil war in 1991 has been charged with treason in Freetown. Foday Sankoh, head of the Revolutionary United Front, was led into a Freetown courtroom under heavy guard on Friday. He made no plea, and his case has been adjourned to September […]