Staff Reporter

INTERNATIONALLY acclaimed South African jazz musician Moses Molelekwa, 28, and his wife have been found dead in his Johannesburg office. Pianist Molelekwa and Florence Mtoba, 35, were found by Mtoba’s brother. Molelekwa was found hanging from a beam and his wife’s body was on the floor. They leave behind a young son. Sources said Molelekwa […]

Glenda Daniels and David Macfarlane Labour has drawn up comprehensive proposals for making South Africa’s railway system profitable and efficient, but neither Spoornet nor the government has responded. As a result, about 15000 workers wait to hear if they will lose their jobs, says Karl von Holdt, who is head of the workplace reconstruction unit […]

Thebe Mabanga food Seafood lovers might have to settle for life without their favourite line fish or bear a higher cost if they do get their choice. The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism intends to introduce regulatory measures designed to protect 20 species of line fish, among them red steenbras, seventy-four, red stumpnose and […]

Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION I was surprised and not a little disappointed that Mr Mbeki didn’t kick off his ritual sermonising at last Friday’s opening of Parliament with some poetry. We have all come to expect the state president’s outpourings to be well versed, as it were. Below is a humble suggestion, what might have been […]

ACADEMY Award winning actor Charlton Heston will present the first “Charlton Heston Award for Courage Under Fire” to South African Home Affairs minister, Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi, at the 28th Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday night. It is speculated that the award is an attempt to influence South Africa’s gun control acts. Heston, 76, the […]

Serjeant at the Bar Anthony Gubbay is a principled person of great courage and integrity. He is also a fine jurist as is evident to anyone who examines the pages of the South African law reports. He is the stuff of a great judicial leader of whom any country would be proud. Until a couple […]

Chez Uhuru 228 Musgrave Road iThekwini To:Dr Essop Pahad The Presidency Union Buildings Tshwane Dear Dr Pahad, I am pleased to report that my career is implacably on track. Although the steps I have taken on my path to power have been tentative ones, I am confident that I am closer to the goal than […]

Police are trying to cover up shocking crime statistics that could devastate tourism, writes Chris McGreal The first thing the growing bands of foreign tourists see after they leave Cape Town airport is never mentioned in the publicity extolling the magnificence of Table Mountain and the glistening sands of Camps Bay. The N2 highway into […]

ALLAN SECCOMBE and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki has backed diamond giant De Beers proposed $17.6bn takeover by a group led by Anglo American and the Oppenheimer family, saying the deal promises massive capital inflows and economic benefits for the country as a whole. Mbeki apparently gave the proposed deal the green […]

Thebe Mabanga in your ear I recently spent two weeks listening to radio in the Western Cape. The experience has proven to be mildly refreshing without being mind blowing. It was refreshing by offering an alternative from the Johannesburg scene without necessarily leaving me gasping for more. Due to time constraints (and the people I […]

Jaspreet Kindra and Glenda Daniels Organised labour has bowed to pressure from the government and business and compromised on proposed amendments to labour legislation. While the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) denied that any deal had been done with the government and business, a document circulating among unions and dealing with one of […]

For the first time in its decades-long history, the Legal Aid Board is being run like a proper company Khadija Magardie Ashley Ally is the new skipper at the helm of the Legal Aid Board. His vision, he says, is simply to fulfil the mandate of the board ensuring “justice for all”. As chief executive […]

GLENDA DANIELS, Johannesburg | Friday DOWNSIZING, rightsizing, cost-cutting, increased productivity, pruning dead wood are terms which strike terror into the hearts of employees – but need not necessarily result in retrenchment, as growing numbers of South African companies are finding. Companies are successfully implementing turnaround strategies by organising Future Forums, a social plan devised by […]

David Beresford Another Country A noticeable aspect about last week’s contretemps between the Irish newspaper tycoon, Sir Anthony O’Reilly, and the South African presidency was that Essop Pahad failed to inform us about the progress of investigations into the great conspiracy to prove the president potty. Essop, or Aesop as Sir Anthony would have us […]

Nawaal Deane and Mungo Soggot The state oil company was this week preparing to block an attempt by Trafigura, the London-based oil company, to keep its controversial deal alive. Trafigura has called for an arbitration hearing to settle the dispute that has arisen over the contract. But the government and the state oil company, both […]

David Le Page De Beers’s long and controversial cross-holding with Anglo American is to end, and the diamond giant plans to delist to become a private company. At an investors’ conference on Thursday, De Beers and Anglo American executives spelt out the logic behind the restructuring of the ownership of the world’s largest diamond company […]

A CHADIAN government minister and the secretary general in President Idriss Deby’s office have been killed with their pilot in a plane crash near the capital Ndjamena. Their small six-seater chartered aircraft came down overnight Wednesday in a sandstorm just across the border from Chad in Cameroon. The dead included Ali Ahmed Lanine, the minister […]

Leading South African businessmen allegedly arranged and received substantial kickbacks for a major state oil transaction Mungo Soggot Keith Kunene, the former chair of the Central Energy Fund (CEF), stands accused of accepting cash bribes in dollars worth R360 000 and was allegedly promised a further R12-million in offshore kickbacks to arrange a secret oil […]

Glenda Daniels Body Language Slavishly follow all trends in the United States, and you could become a blithering dithering fool especially if you’re a woman. Shut up and surrender to your man, tell him he’s wonderful even when he’s an idiot, and you will have the perfect relationship. This is what a new book The […]

Jaspreet Kindra The removal of two Democratic Alliance members from the position of chair of the public accounts committees in the Eastern Cape and Gauteng legislatures last week is being interpreted by the opposition as an attempt by the African National Congress to muzzle independent voices. The ANC is the majority party in both legislatures. […]

STEPHEN MBOGO, Bamako, Mali | Friday ALTHOUGH most African countries have ratified the international Mine Ban Treaty, the continent continues to use landmines more than any other region in the world – and a staggering 31 of 53 states on the continent have a problem with uncleared landmines. The 1997 treaty bans the use, production, […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Mercedes Sayagues, the Mail & Guardian’s correspondent in Harare, will have to leave Zimbabwe at the end of the month if the Mugabe government sticks to the threat it issued through its press mouthpiece, The Herald, on Thursday. Government officials told The Herald that Sayagues, a Uruguayan journalist and former aid […]

John Young cricket The first-class averages published after the round-robin phase of SuperSport Series matches shows that the four-day competition’s top wicket-taker was born in the West Indies. No surprise there. The surprise is that Paul Adams’s name doesn’t appear on the bowling list at all and there are 20 names on it. Can it […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The security company hired by the Gauteng government to relocate hundreds of Alexandra residents is facing disciplinary action for allegedly breaching regulations governing the security industry. The Security Officers Board (SOB), a statutory body charged with regulating the security industry, confirmed this week that Wozani Security is being investigated for contravening […]

British lone yacht skipper Ellen MacArthur logs 95 days of supreme physical effort, cheating death in an icy ocean and battling sleep deprivation before she sails into port to end her Vende Globe single-handed adventure Day 1, November 9 2000 On a grey, wet and cold afternoon, Ellen MacArthur visits every skipper on the dockside, […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni A Venda cleric believes he is going to die today. He is spending the better part of the day on his knees appealing to God to save his soul. He is also fasting. Thambulo Mabuke, who hails from a village called Tshaulu near Thoyandou, Northern Province, was warned of his imminent […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The chair of the South African Human Rights Commission (HRC), Barney Pityana, will quit his position when his contract expires in September next year. Pityana, who has chaired the HRC since its inception, told the Mail & Guardian this week he is not planning to renew his contract. He says his […]

The winner of the Peace Gardens award in 1998, Joe Mpuru, vowed to show what he could do with his prize money Thuli Nhlapo For Joe Mpuru, a traditional healer and gardener, opening prayer when he walks into his “Tears of Joy” community garden in Klipspruit, Soweto, does not put him at a risk of […]

Guy Willoughby theatre Is the Spier Summer Festival’s avowed commitment to excellence and the immediate community actually working? With the fifth annual Festival three-quarters through it runs from November to March it’s a good juncture to take stock. Their latest production, the Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim musical West Side Story a rumbustious retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo […]

Riaan Wolmarans CD OFTHEWEEK The dance shelves of CD stores are clogged with row after row of almost identical-sounding, hits-of-the-moment albums. All fun to listen to, all guaranteed to sell well, but often approaching a heard-one-heard-’em-all level. In this quagmire of beats, DJ Mbuso’s Urban House Mix:Second Session (David Gresham) is as welcome as an […]

Hanrie Greebe Right to Reply Recent allegations in the Mail & Guardian of mismanagement at Vista University (“A horrific history of mismanagement” and “Top perks for senior staff”, February 9 to 15) are disappointing in that journalists allowed themselves to be manipulated to the benefit of a few personal agendas. The inclusion of factual information […]

In the 1970s, Peter Hain was a liberal South African firebrand with a taste for civil disobedience. His rise up Whitehall’s greasy pole has prompted cries of ‘sell-out’. Is his new job as energy minister a promotion, or is Tony Blair sidelining one of the few radical minds in his government? Kevin Toolis reports Her […]