A PARLIAMENTARY leader in the west African state of Togo says an international report detailing widespread human rights abuses in the country is both biased and untrue. He also said the report would have no effect on the country’s government. The report said there had been “systematic abuses of human rights” following an election in […]
CLAIRE KEETON, Johannesburg | Sunday THIS week will see the start of a landmark court bid by 39 pharmaceutical companies to stop the South African government implementing a law that will allow it to override patent rights in search of cheaper medicine for its citizens. The list of applicants includes major multinational drug manufacturers like […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Blantyre | Sunday FLOODS in Malawi have not made world headlines, and there are no helicopters here flying low to pluck people to safety, as there are in neighbouring Mozambique – but more than 220 000 people have been affected by the raging waters which have devastated the country. Thousands of people have […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Sunday A DURBAN policeman who has confessed in court his involvement in three of the countrys biggest heists, is still serving with the police, the Sunday Times newspaper reported. Inspector Rajendra Sewrajlall of the crime and intelligence unit admitted in the Durban High Court that he made and supplied armour-piercing bullets […]
AN international team of scientists has found animal fossils more than four million years old near the southeastern Ethiopian town of Gadamaitu. The 250 pieces of unearthed remains, including parts of a hyena and lion and a complete baboon skull, are “in most cases pretty rare fossils.” The group of anthropologists, paleontologists and geologists from […]
JUDGMENT has been reserved in the appeal of rightwing leader Eugene Terre’blanche against his conviction on a charge of attempting to murder farm worker Paul Mothabe in March 1996. The appeal was limited to the question whether he should instead have been convicted on a charge of serious assault. Adv Nico van der Walt, for […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Washington | Saturday WHILE some Internet companies are losing their shirts, NakedNews.com says its formula of newscasters who shed their clothes while reading the news is helping fuel an expansion. The 14-month-old website draws nearly six million Internet viewers per month, from the United States to New Zealand, and from every continent, says […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Saturday THE Zimbabwe government has struck a deal with the country’s defiant chief justice, signalling the end of a bitter stand-off between the judiciary and executive which has caused tensions both at home and abroad. Under the agreement, Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay will stay on in his post, but will be […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Saturday SEVEN people, including two children, were crushed to death when commuters stampeded at Johannesburg’s Park Station – allegedly following a confrontation between passengers and security guards, who closed the entrance gates to the platform. Spoornet representative Bintu Petsana said nine others were injured in the incident, which happened just after […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Saturday SOUTH African mountaineers will tackle two of the world’s few remaining unclimbed 7_000m peaks in China in July, says the expedition leader. “The Kuksay region is very remote and has two peaks – Kuksay Peak (7_184m) and the Koskulak Peak (7_028m) – which have not been climbed,” said Ulrike Kiefer, […]
Mail & Guardian reporter The fourth international writers’ festival, Time of the Writer, organised by the University of Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts, in association with the French Institute of South Africa, will run from March 26 to 31. Fifteen writers representing 11 different countries will give readings, presentations, on-stage interviews and discussions. The festival […]
Thebe Mabanga CDs OFTHEWEEK Keith Sweat, the former stockbroker who lays claim to having invented the R&B/rap/hip-hop style known as new jack swing, has released his seventh solo album, Didn’t See Me Coming (Elektra). The album continues the trend his sound has been following on his last two albums, Keith Sweat and Still In the […]
Khadija Magardie Sara Rasool*, a freelance journalist, thought the perfect birthday gift for her 59-year-old mother, Mariam*, would be signing her up as a member of one of the country’s premier medical schemes. Though her mother was in perfect health, Rasool felt she could cover all her bases in case of illness by putting her […]
whipping boy A wise old punter once said: “Son, if you want to come out ahead in life, stay away from fast women and slow horses.” Gauteng conditioner Buddy Maroun has followed at least the second part of that sage advice his horses invariably move quickly. Widely regarded as the most accomplished trainer of sprinters […]
Matthew Burbidge ‘Newspapers are the best place to start photographing one moment you’re with Nelson Mandela and the next you’re in a shack,” says documentary photographer Jodi Bieber, who won a first place at this year’s World Press Awards. This is the sixth prize (three firsts, two seconds and a third) Bieber has won at […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The Eastern Cape’s First Lady, Nambita Stofile, is running a black empowerment venture that has won a string of government contracts in the province. Stofile has been a director of Masakhane Security for the past two years. Her husband, Makhenkesi Stofile, has been Eastern Cape premier since 1996. Nambita Stofile was […]
Labour is fighting rationalisation in the motor industry that is causing a job loss bloodbath in South Africa Glenda Daniels A devastating loss of more than 2?000 jobs a month in South Africa’s metal industry is the cost of the industry’s move to become globally competitive. The release of this shocking figure from the National […]
Andy Capostagno golf There was a certain poignancy in the way the professional golfing season handed the baton on last Sunday. In stifling heat at Leopard Creek Darren Fichardt won the Tour Championship to conclude the Sunshine Tour, while a relaxed Ernie Els climbed into the top 10 with a six-under-par 65 before flying to […]
Jaspreet Kindra South Africa when led by Nelson Mandela acted as a “bully” against the military dictatorship in Nigeria, making a “terrible mistake”, says the African National Congress’s head of international affairs and policy, Mavivi Myokayaka-Manzini. But the country is not going repeat that mistake with Zimbabwe, she said in an interview with the Mail […]
Ferrari has added reliability to its romantic Formula One image as Michael Schumacher prepares to defend his drivers’ title when the season starts in Australia on Sunday Oliver Owen For many years in Grand Prix racing there were two types of team British and Ferrari. There was the odd interloper such as Ligier and Renault […]
Robert Kirby LOOSE CANNON It is not at all surprising that the African National Congress has decided to set up its own online news and information service, ANC Today. What is surprising is that it’s taken so long for the organisation to realise what benefits can accrue from a website totally under party control. It […]
Former president Nelson Mandela spent an hour on Wednesday morning talking to Mail &Guardian editor Howard Barrell and associate editor Sipho Seepe.
AnnMarie Wolpe second look In 1988 Harold Wolpe wrote a short, dense, theoretically engaging book, Race, Class and the Apartheid State. He argued that different and often diametrically opposed political views shared a common platform, which was to end apartheid. Yet these views neglected analyses that took into account the very conditions that upheld the […]
Guy Willoughby theatre Does German expressionism translate tangibly for a South African and contemporary audience? The question will occur to theatre-goers at Kurt Weill and Georg Keiser’s The Silver Lake (first performance February 18 1933), currently in its first local production at Spier. The expressionists sought to mirror psychological realities rather than physical appearances through […]
Sipho None handball It will be all systems go when the Gauteng Handball Association (GHA) clubs return to action later this month, and a German team’s tour will boost attempts to set up women’s leagues in South Africa. GHA, an affiliate of the South African Handball Federaton (SAHF), was formed in 1994 and has a […]
Drinking while pregnant causes irreversible damage, condemning children to an inferior lifestyle Suzan Chala South Africa has the highest figures of foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) in the world. According to the chief executive officer of the Foundation for Alcohol Relation Research, Professor Denis Viljoen: “One in 20 children in the Western Cape has FAS.” FAS […]
TITO Mboweni, the governor of South Africa’s central Reserve Bank, says he hopes the political situation in Zimbabwe would stabilise as it was troubling financial markets and foreign investors in the region. “There is a perception that the region may be a bit unstable as a consequence of developments in Zimbabwe,” he said, adding that […]
David Le Page ‘Nothing is being privatised,” says Johannesburg council water representative Jamieel Chand of the council’s management deal with a British-led consortium. The deal was signed two weeks ago and provides for a 12-person team from the winning consortium the Johannesburg Water Management Company (Jowam) to join the 2 500 workers employed by Johannesburg […]
Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION The latest half-hour to emanate from the television sitcom mass-production factory of Penguin Films is Madam and Eve, a conspicuously futile attempt to transpose the characters of a daily comic strip to the screen. The endeavour was doomed from the start and for all the obvious reasons. As I was blathering on […]
Bait. Jamie Foxx plays a very funny, motor-mouthed petty thief who becomes the titular bait for a major thief and computer genius. Monitoring our turbo-tongue is a cop (David Morse) who has had a mic-thingy implanted in Foxx’s jaw. Thus the latter’s every line can be heard by a team of state experts, and what […]
WILLIAM Shakespeare – or at least his contemporaries – were doing cocaine, dabbling with dagga and experimenting with a range of drugs that would impress even the most desperate of junkies. These are the findings of the police forensic science laboratory in Pretoria, which conducted chemical analysis of several English 17th-century clay smoking pipes that […]
Deon Potgieter boxing Jackie “Pressure Cooker” Gunguluza could be facing his Waterloo at the Graceland hotel in Secunda on Sunday. The veteran fighter will be attempting to win the national featherweight title a historic fourth time. At 35 this may be his last shot at the big time, and big time it will be. Not […]