Staff Reporter

Nicolas Guilhot For 50 years the World Bank has been the arbiter of development. Its annually published World Development Report defines the priorities, the jargon and the issues that shape and express the concept of development. From the reduction of poverty so close to the heart of Robert McNamara (bank president from 1968 to 1981), […]

Riaan Wolmarans It’s not easy to ask an attractive waiter for a Screaming Orgasm or Sex on the Beach while keeping a straight face especially not after you’ve already had a few of either. But you’ll just get a stoical stare before you’re served a big multicoloured concoction with various straws, fruits and an umbrella […]

The purpose of this text is to fuel the debate between right-wing and left-wing intellectuals. It does not attempt to explain the relation of either to governments or changes in society Subcommandante Marcos I. Pay-per-view global domination We learned at school that the world is not square; but at the start of the third millennium […]

Race has been a major issue in 2000 it was a theme of President Thabo Mbeki’s speech at the opening of Parliament; the Human Rights Commission investigated race in the media and organised a conference on racism in South Africa. The politicians and the academics have been heard and read on the subject throughout the […]

friday december 22 Cricket: Tour match, second day, KwaZulu-Natal vs Sri Lanka at 10am on SuperSport1 (SS1)/CSN; Standard Bank Cup, Boland vs Griqualand West, from Paarl, at 3.45pm on SS2 (from 6pm also on SS1/CSN) Soccer: English Nationwide second division, Bristol City vs Bristol Rovers at 9.45pm on SuperSport International (SSInt) saturday december 23 Cricket: […]

THE government of Kano State has become the second in northern Nigeria to introduce women-only buses in line with strict Islamic law, officials said on Wednesday. Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, who signed the Islamic code known as the Sharia into law last month, on Tuesday received 10 buses which will be for use of […]

Anew generation of young black writers has failed to emerge in the post-apartheid era, writes Shaun de Waal As literary editor of this paper, I have grown very tired of hearing the question inevitably posed by visiting foreign journalists trawling for information about South African literature: Where are the new young black writers? There seemed […]

How does Father Christmas get everywhere in one night? Henry Gee explains In his book, Unweaving the Rainbow, Richard Dawkins boasts that he tried to tell a six-year-old child that Father Christmas didn’t exist. His argument was that Father Christmas would not be able to climb down all those chimneys and tiptoe noiselessly to the […]

The best 1 Boys Don’t Cry. Hilary Swank got an Oscar for her role as a girl going as a boy; shocking, moving, unsentimental and rapturous. 2 American Beauty. Oscar-winning black comedy about the suburban nightmare, with superb central performance from Kevin Spacey. 3 The Limey. Steven Soderbergh’s off-beat modern-day film noir with a wonderfully […]

SOUTH Africa has donated more than four million rand as well as goods like clothes and food to Angola’s war victims, the social development minister said on Wednesday. At a ceremony to hand over the donation to United Nations agencies, Minister Zola Skweyiya thanked Angolans for their support during South Africa’s struggle against apartheid and […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni It is difficult to believe that the relaxed man stirring his steaming pot at the plush Pretoria lodge is the leader of the largest and most violent vigilante group in the country. Sipping his favourite Amstel lager, Monhle Magolego, the controversial president of Mapogo a Matamaga, is contemplating his organisation’s achievements […]

102 Dalmations. She’s back. Cruella de Vil (Glenn Close) re-emerges with a social conscience that lasts a full 10 minutes. Representing us dull, ordinary good folk is the pretty probation officer who will keep an eye on Cruella but keeps Dalmations. Her boyfriend looks like a male version of her and keeps dogs, too, but […]

People have been staring into crystal balls for hundreds of years, sometimes with alarming accuracy. But usually they have been hugely, and entertainingly, wrong. Jonathan Margolis looks back at the history of futurology and risks a few predictions of his own Buried deep in the stack at the Bodleian library in Oxford, from which it […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Friday ZIMBABWE’S Supreme Court this week again tried to end a violent squatter campaign on white-owned farms, and gave President Robert Mugabe’s government six months to craft an acceptable land reform program. The nation’s highest court told police for the third time in two months that they had to evict squatters […]

Andrew Muchineripi soccer Just when I thought it was safe to put my weary feet up, light the pipe (sorry, Mrs Tshabalala-Msimang) and forget about the sometimes beautiful game for a couple of weeks, the telephone rang. My worst fears were realised. It was the sports editor of your favourite newspaper on the line to […]

The Mail & Guardian introduces you to the movers and shakers of the rainbow nation In compiling our top 100 stars of the future, we sought to have fun. But more importantly, we wish to reflect the direction we believe our country will take over the next decade. This will be a decade in which […]

Signs are not good for future Western participation in peacekeeping missions Chris McGreal There are two views of what the British are up to in Sierra Leone. The critics contend that the dispatch of hundreds of Royal Marines and paratroopers to occupy Freetown, the quiet takeover of many functions of the Sierra Leonean government by […]

THE corpse of man was left lying in Kampala’s main taxi park for two days because of fears that he had died of the highly contagious Ebola fever. The old man had been bleeding through the nose, eyes and mouth shortly before he collapsed and died on Sunday morning, according to media reports. A lorry […]

“The daily slaughters of men, women and children is an indictment against each and every one of you.” Former president Nelson Mandela, addressing the belligerents in the Burundi conflict in Tanzania “The only way in which Dene Smuts was disadvantaged by apartheid was that she was prevented from having sex across the colour line.” Minister […]

It was supposed to have been a universal high, but culturally the year 2000 was one of blood, guts and acrimony Matthew Krouse Below the belt: October 23. It was a foreskin fury when artist Peet Pienaar raised the ire of fellow exhibitor Thembinkosi Goniwe upon announcing he was to stage his own circumcision as […]

!Xu-Kwe Radio is a first in Southern Africa a station that caters exclusively for two San communities, in their own languages Jubie Matlou Nine-year-old Willem Kovia narrated the origins of a fall-out between a bear and wolf on the one hand, and a rabbit on the other, that resulted in the latter becoming a target […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, United Nations | Friday CANADA has proposed that the UN Security Council create a team of experts to permanently monitor the sanctions regime applied against diamond and weapons smuggling that funds armed conflicts. The best way to ensure a follow-up of UN sanctions is “establishing a permanent office … to monitor the sanctions,” […]

Denise Ford State hospitals are dysfunctional places over the festive season. Staff are run at skeleton levels, on the theory that “non-urgent” cases will be kept at a minimum. Unfortunately, the state’s continued cutting of resources and beds in secondary and tertiary care facilities means that most beds are filled with very ill patients. It […]

Mail & Guardian reporters The Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, has axed the board of the Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF) and called in the police to pursue a criminal investigation of the state oil company’s R1,5-billion deal with an international oil company. Mlambo-Ngcuka has also asked for the resignation of Keith Kunene, […]

It has been recognised that there are inherent problems in a system like globalisation, where capital calls the shots, while labour is voiceless Larry Elliott A subtle shift has occurred in the lexicon of globalisation over the past 12 months. Prior to Seattle, it was assumed that there was an inexorable logic to the process […]

SOME 28 million people are going hungry in sub-Saharan Africa because of drought and civil war, the UN food agency said in a report this week. The Food and Agriculture Organisation said in Eritrea, some 1.5 million people have been displaced by a two-year border war – now officially over – with Ethiopia, and they, […]

KwaZulu-Natal gets the honours as South Africa’s dodgiest province in the year 2000 Paul Kirk They fled with trust funds, they fleeced investors and they stole from the state this year’s crop of rogues proved that crime does pay and that 2000 was a bumper year for South Africa’s underworld. The survivor of the year […]

All that glitters: Having been knighted, actor Antony Sher was celebrated by Ambassador Cheryl Carolus at South Africa House. As an openly gay man he lamented that his partner, theatre director Gregory Doran, would not be called Lady Gregory from then on. Going for gold: In an industry full of fat egos and tiny balls, […]

In the quest for fast food and efficiency people have forgotten how to taste. A lobby group aims to reawaken the senses Barry Streek Mercifully, a new international movement has been launched, first in Italy and now sweeping the United States, to promote the enjoyment of food and the long lunch or dinner. Slow Food, […]

THE World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on Thursday announced a debt reduction package for Malawi that when fully implemented would make the African nation eligible for relief worth one billion dollars. The relief envisioned for Malawi is worth $643m in present value terms, according to a Bank-IMF statement, which added that over the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday APPROXIMATELY a fifth, or 16%, of South African graduates want to leave the country either permanently or only for a few years, a recently published Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) study has found, Die Burger newspaper reports. Only one third of the people, who are planning to go overseas, […]

Cedric Mayson spirit level Oupa: What are you drawing? Child: It’s a picture of Jesus. Oupa: But no one knows what Jesus looked like. Child: They will do when I’ve finished. The marvellous Christmas pictures drawn by Luke and Matthew are full of meaning and to dismiss them as myths is to miss the point. […]