Staff Reporter

Grant Shimmin Bidding for Glory: Why South Africa lost the Olympic and World Cup bids, and how to win next time by Edward Griffiths (Jonathan Ball) Edward Griffiths believes more sports books need to be written by South Africans. “There should be a book on every Springbok rugby tour. There’s a market for it,” he […]

There is a growing sense of outrage around the world as the effects of globalisation are felt Ben Turok The international political order is exhibiting a new divide which could replace earlier confrontations. The new divisions are not based on opposing groups of states but on a horizontal division between civil society organisations across the […]

VIOLENCE has erupted in a second Johannesburg township as some 700 residents of Soweto set fire to local council offices, burnt a councillor’s car and smashed another, witnesses said. Firefighters summoned to the blaze had to withdraw as the crowd pelted them with stones. The violence flared at the end of a meeting called by […]

Neal Collins soccer Shaun Bartlett is the latest South African to face a major club versus country dispute following his Man of the Match performance for Charlton against Newcastle on Sunday. Bartlett, currently on loan from FC Zurich, scored one and made the other for Matthias Svensson at The Valley in a rousing 2-0 win. […]

Following a hearing before the Press Ombudsman in Johannesburg on February 5, the Mail & Guardian is required to publish the following: The Mail & Guardian published in its November 10 to 16 issue a report which accused the Hartbeespoort Local Council of hijacking the tourist town by setting up a private company, owned by […]

Staff allege that Thabo Ndabeni used the organisation to enrich himself Khadija Magardie The man insiders say is responsible for the collapse of the dispute resolution body the Independent Mediation Service of South Africa (Imssa) is running his own consultancy The Grain of Wheat Consulting just a stone’s throw from where Imssa’s offices were. His […]

SOUTH Africa’s Public Enterprises Minister Jeff Radebe says he is confident SAirGroup would exercise its option to buy another 10% of South African Airways this year. SAirGroup, the parent of Swissair, already has a 20% stake in SAA. Radebe also confirmed that the government planned to pursue an initial public offering of SAA in 2002, […]

TWO men pretending to be brothers of President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) misled Iraqi authorities by posing as envoys of the government, officials said. The official Iraqi news agency INA said the two men, who identified themselves as Salomon and Zigho Kabila, brothers of the newly sworn-in president, were in […]

THE UN World Food Programme (WFP) has appealed for $135m to feed 2.9 million Sudanese facing acute hunger due to continuing civil war and a worsening drought. Logistics and distribution systems are in place but WFP food warehouses are almost empty. Food would be destined for people in both government and rebel-held areas of the […]

ANGOLAS Unita rebels say they killed 115 Angolan troops and 12 Namibian soldiers in operations conducted across the country in the past month. Unita said its forces had attacked a military garrison manned by Angolan and Namibian troops in the southern city of Kuangar, forcing those stationed at the base to flee to the neighbouring […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Khartoum | Thursday FIVE Sudanese had their limbs amputated last month in a punishment the Islamist government here has imposed only once before in its 12 years in power, say a human rights group and diplomats. The five men, convicted of armed robbery, each had their right hand and left foot cut off […]

DELEGATES from 53 countries, including 40 African states, are expected in the Malian capital Bamako for a meeting on implementing the 1997 Ottawa convention against landmines. The two-day pan-African meeting, initiated by Mali with support from France and Canada, is aimed at devising a “concrete strategy” in the campaign to eliminate landmines. Of the estimated […]

OLA AWONIYI, Abuja | Thursday A ROW over the extraordinary security precautions of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has caused the cancellation of a visit to Nigeria, straining relations between the self-styled architect of African unity and its most populous nation. Gaddafi, who often travels Africa surrounded by a large team of heavily armed security agents, […]

EVARISTO CUMBANE, Maputo | Thursday RELIEF operations in flood-stricken central Mozambique are being seriously hampered by water-swamped roads, leaving many regions accessible only by air, say harassed disaster officials. “As the situation worsens all along the Zambezi valley, we are gradually coming under pressure, particularly in terms of transport,” said Joao Zamissa, representative for the […]

A WILD elephant bull has been shot dead after Mpumalanga rangers discovered cancerous growths protruding from its mouth. Rangers at Mthethomusha Game Reserve east of Nelspruit noticed tongue-like growths hanging out the 15-year-old elephant’s mouth two weeks ago. The growths made it difficult for him to eat. A local hunter paid about R20 000 to […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday SOUTH Africa and other poor countries are being frustrated by pharmaceutical companies’ delays in announcing what price cuts they are prepared to offer on anti-Aids drugs, says Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. “We are just wallowing in a sea of uncertainty not knowing what the pharmaceutical companies are offering, and […]

TWELVE people, including four teenagers, have appeared in the Potgietersrus Magistrate’s Court in connection with setting alight three old women suspected of witchcraft. The 12 are accused of killing Rosina Seema, 80, and seriously injuring Hellen Mautjane and Josephine Maima, both 70, last week after villagers accused them of turning two children into zombies. The […]

STEVEN SWINDELLS, Johannesburg | Wednesday MAJOR South African mining firms have started to test miners anonymously for Aids in an attempt to come to terms with a disease that threatens to devastate their workforce. The testing of miners’ saliva is expected to show that roughly a quarter of the country’s 500_000 miners are living with […]

FRENCH judges looking into allegations of unauthorised arms sales to Angola are focusing on the gift of a luxury armour-plated car to President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos. The vehicle – worth 1.3 million francs ($186 000) – was paid for partly by Brenco International, the arms trading company whose president Pierre Falcone is in prison […]

DUTCH Prime Minister Wim Kok will make an official three-day visit to South Africa later this month at the invitation of South African President Thabo Mbeki. Kok will meet with Mbeki and members of his cabinet on February 26 and 27. He also will address the South African parliament. On February 28, the Dutch premier […]

ANOTHER little boy has been left paralysed and brain damaged after undergoing surgery to repair a broken arm at Mpumalanga’s “hospital of hell”. Provincial health authorities have tried to cover up the maltreatment, ordering families not to speak to the press and lying about subsequent therapy. Thirteen-year-old Bheki Mokoena broke his arm in 1996 and […]

MALAWIAN police have filed criminal charges against three journalists from the opposition Daily Times for publishing “false news likely to cause public alarm.” The Daily Times this week carried a story alleging that serial murders had resurfaced in Chiradzulu district, 15km from Blantyre. Eight men have been murdered since January, with their eyes gouged and […]

VERTICAL and above ground burials could be a solution to SAs grave space shortage, a problem exacerbated by the large numbers of people dying from HIV/Aids. Landscape designer Lynton Johnson said at the Funerex conference in Durban the rise in the number of people who had died because of HIV/Aids had affected demand for burial […]

SOUTH African sugar and aluminium producer Tongaat-Hulett Group is prepared to buy back up to 20% of its shares, which would boost the price before shareholder Anglo American sells a controlling stake. Anglo American is expected to sell its major remaining non-core asset – a 50.9% stake in Tongaat, whose businesses involve sugar, aluminium, starch, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday INTERNATIONALLY acclaimed South African jazz musician Moses Molelekwa, 28, and his wife were found dead in his Johannesburg premises, police said on Wednesday. Inspector Mary Martins-Engelbrecht said jazz pianist Molelekwa and Florence Mtoba, 35, were found late on Tuesday by Mtoba’s brother. Molelekwa was found hanging from a beam and […]

FOUR Rwandans – including two Catholic nuns – suspected of involvement in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda will go on trial in Brussels on April 17. Vincent Ntezimana and Alphonse Higaniro, and nuns Gertrude Mukangango and Julienne Kizito, all residents of Brussels, are charged with war crimes, according to the official indictment. Higaniro and Ntezimana […]

Own Correspondent, Windhoek HUMANITARIAN organisations in Namibia fear that the planned move of a huge refugee camp to the northeast of the country will disrupt the fragile way of life of the largely illiterate San hunter-gatherers there. Officials say that as a result of that concern, the ministry of home affairs has agreed to commission […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Wednesday SCORES of Mpumalanga schools still practise petty apartheid, denying their black pupils equal education and access to science labs or sports facilities and forcing them to use separate buses on school trips. Some of the more “hardcore racist” schools also refuse to offer non-Afrikaans speakers mathematics, commerce or other science […]

THE mayor of Tobatse in the Northern Province has come under fire for wanting to take a trip to China that is expected to cost R180_000. The council has not budgeted for Mayor Pinky Morena’s trip, said Pan African Congress (PAC) chief whip in the Sekhukhune region, Nyankane Masilela. He alleged that PAC councillor Joel […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maputo | Wednesday FLOOD victims in central Mozambique are being plucked from treetops as at least two large settlements were swallowed by the Zambezi river this week, sparking emergency operations to evacuate people from affected areas. The Jardim and Chirembwe settlements in the Mutarara locality of Inhangome were reported to be under water. […]

A SOUTH African court has withdrawn charges against seven vagrants accused of raping and robbing a Brazilian journalist because she failed to appear at the hearing. The reporter had been in South Africa for barely a day, in July 1999, when she was allegedly attacked on her way to her Johannesburg hotel. She left South […]