Staff Reporter

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 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

EVARISTO CUMBANE, Maputo | Thursday FORMER Mozambican rebel chief and now opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama finally recognised the government of President Joaquim Chissano late Wednesday, after seven hours of talks on the year-old electoral dispute. In a joint communique signed by the two men, Dhlakama for the first time referred to Chissano as the president […]

THE Norwegian Nobel Institute has invited all the living peace prize laureates, among whom are former South African presidents FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, to Oslo for its centenary celebrations in 2001, the newspaper Aftenposten reported this week. The institute marks the 100th awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2001, and around […]

MICHEL LECLERCQ, United Nations | Thursday A UN panel on Wednesday recommended a total embargo on diamonds coming from Liberia, accusing Monrovia of complicity in the diamond and arms trafficking that is sustaining the conflict in neighbouring Sierra Leone. The report by the five-member panel of experts appointed by UN chief Kofi Annan, concluded that […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday SOUTH African government delays in issuing a comprehensive policy framework on the liberalisation of the telecommunications market are hampering efforts by the industry’s regulator Icasa to restore investor confidence, Mandla Langa, the chairman of the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), said this week. To this end, Icasa has moved […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday THE world’s largest gold producer has sold two mines in South Africa in a deal worth one billion rand, the SABC television station reported on Tuesday. AngloGold announced that it had sold the gold mines – Elandsrand and Deelkraal, situated west of Johannesburg – to a smaller rival, Harmony Gold […]

GRIFFIN SHEA, Harare | Thursday ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe downplayed his nation’s troubles on Wednesday in his state of the nation address to parliament, the first such speech he has ever given to an almost evenly split legislature. Mugabe noted that Zimbabwe’s economy “performed below expectations” in 2000, saying that the government expects to post […]

MORE than 200 Zimbabwean soldiers who fled into Zambia after a rebel offensive in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been repatriated, state media reported this week. Zambian General Timothy Kazembe, head of a Joint Military Commission set up to oversee a ceasefire in the DRC, said the Zimbabwean troops, who back the DRC […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday SOUTH Africans have become slightly more positive about race relations since last year, but more whites have reported discrimination, according to a survey released this week. “An encouraging 44% of South Africans think that race relations have improved in the country since 1994,” the first year of black majority rule, […]

ILDA JACOBS, Washington | Tuesday A SOUTH African woman married to an African-American prisoner has embarked on a 40-day hunger strike in a bid to have him declassified as a gangster so that he will be given parole. Lara Johnson, 34, who was born in Volksrust in Mpumalanga, met Demian Johnson, 36, when he appealed […]

NIGERIA is the world’s 13th poorest country but six individual Nigerians rank among the world’s 100 richest people, press reports said this week. The reports, based on findings of a survey aired by the BBC on Monday, were splashed across the front pages of most newspapers. With a population of over 120 million people, Nigeria’s […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Wednesday A TOTAL of 23291 workers in the formal business sector lost their jobs between June and September this year, Statistics SA reported this week. The shed jobs were out of a total figure of 4735052 employees, Annette Myburgh of Stats SA told reporters in Pretoria on Tuesday. The decline in […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday THE army captain who apparently used pictures of President Thabo Mbeki and other government leaders as shooting targets is the victim of a “smear campaign”, Beeld newspaper reports. The captain is innocent and a highly respected member of the National Defence Force, Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota told reporters on […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday SOUTH Africa is losing more than R23bn per year in direct and indirect income to the approximately 32 Asian, Italian, Nigerian and Russian crime syndicates currently established in the country, according to a crime report by the American CIA and FBI. Afrikaans daily newspaper Beeld said the report described South […]

NAMIBIAN President Sam Nujoma made the national army band replay the national anthem at a parade because it was too slow, The Namibian newspaper reported. They were playing at a passing-out parade for national youth service recruits at the Walvis Base military base. “I don’t know why everyone plays our anthem so slowly, even internationally,” […]

THE South African National Parks board is conducting a public opinion poll on the use of cellphones in its reserves. SANP head of environmental services Murray Macgregor said the law on environmental impact assessments required that the establishment of a cellular network within a national park be investigated. The Kruger National Park has cellular coverage […]

SAM AOLA-OOKO, Mombasa | Tuesday CAMPAIGNERS in Kenya have come up with an ingenious new weapon in the fight against HIV and Aids: the minibus. Across Africa, minibuses are the most popular form of public transport, especially in towns and cities. In Kenya, where they are called matatu, or threes, because a ride once cost […]

LIFESAVERS aboard a rescue helicopter saved four children who were drowning off South Africa’s eastern coast within half an hour on Monday. An official said the helicopter crew spotted a boy of 12 in distress in the Indian Ocean at about 1:00 pm. Less than half-an-hour later the helicopter spotted three children, aged about 13 […]

MOZAMBIQUE’S economic growth, which had averaged 10% annually prior to devastating floods early in 2000, will suffer from the disaster for another year, a government minister said this week. The southern African country saw all efforts made since 1992 – after a 16-year civil war – washed away at the beginning of this year by […]

ERITREA said this week that it looked foward to a “future of peace and hope” with Ethiopia after both countries formally ended more than two years of war. On December 12 in Algiers, Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi signed a comprehensive peace accord to end a conflict that erupted on […]

KWAZULU-Natal provincial traffic chief John Schnell says weather and traffic volumes have played a major role in South Africa’s holiday death toll, which had reached 373 by Monday night – but warned that most head-on collisions and rear-endings were preceded by a traffic law violation. The Arrive Alive centre in Pretoria said speed, drinking and […]