FRIDAY, 5.00PM: IMPROVED performance and a revised government rescue package have ensured that the ERPM gold mine will be saved from closure for the time being. Outgoing chairman Lionel Hewitt said on Thursday the mine’s new management had manged to bring the mines operations close to break-even in the past few months since it recorded […]

Cape Town’s olympic bid captured the spirit of the city but not the continent, writes Ferial Haffajee It was almost as if the the spin-doctors and mega-marketeers responsible for selling Cape Town’s Olympic bid took a late swig of Energade to boost a flagging campaign. Or it may have been the countdown to decision day […]

Durban’s Bat Centre was created for the cultural community. Today, two years later, it is under fire from that community. Suzy Bell reports It’s that garish building by the sea, splashed with crude but colourful murals that attracts Durban’s eclectic bohemians – white girls in punjabis, rastas stoned on more than the pungent scent of […]

Lack of stock controls in hospitals is costing the state millions, writes Aspasia Karras A state-employed pharmacist in KwaZulu- Natal was almost killed last month by an armed gunman, in an attack that has been linked to the measures instituted by the provincial health department to curb the theft of pharmaceuticals from government stocks. As […]

Cape Town’s privileged position as the home of Parliament is slipping away, writes Marion Edmunds Management consultants KPMG have dashed Cape Town’s chances of keeping Parliament with a finding that the cost of moving the country’s administration to Cape Town would be a staggering R23,5-billion. The African National Congress’s pro-Gauteng lobby will use this figure […]

Ed Vulliamy Stamp collecting has never been as sizzling a preoccupation as it is now, since drummer and Massachusetts stamp gallery owner Don Palazzo had the idea of raising revenue in Third World countries by issuing entertaining postage paraphernalia. The hobby has suddenly exploded along with the fear of the eruption of the volcano in […]

Janet Smith Oscar-winners Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline, musician Peter Gabriel, film-maker Richard Attenborough, novelist Ken Follett, businessman Richard Branson and crusading journalist Donald Woods are the dazzling reasons why East London will finally be able to stage a celebration fit for the life of activist Steve Biko. Rallied by Woods, this illustrious collection has […]

I have always considered (and still do) the Mail & Guardian to be among the best newspapers – not just in Africa, but in the world. I was thus disappointed in the manner that the newspaper handled the issue around the late Professor Sam Nolutshungu. At first, like everybody else who had read the articles […]

Grard Sekoto belongs to that pantheon of artists who have received too little too late. Today he is regarded – whether accurately or not – as the father of South African painting. Yet his life epitomised the contradictory standards applied to black and white artists during apartheid. Although the source of his art-making was derived […]

murder Peta Thornycroft The shotgun allegedly used to kill David Webster was thrown into a Nylstroom dam by former policeman Ferdi Barnard. This information will be used against Barnard when he goes on trial charged with a clutch of crimes, including the 1989 murder of Webster, an activist and anthropologist at the University of the […]