Staff Reporter

Glenda Daniels A SECOND LOOK I spent last weekend agonising about whether to vote in the local government elections. As a black South African, how can one not vote after so many people have made sacrifices, suffered enormous hardship and even died to make a democratic South Africa possible? From this point of view the […]

PRO-GOVERNMENT south Sudanese militia have razed three camps of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in the south-east, killing at least 53 rebels. The militia, identified as “Peace Forces,” destroyed equipment, killed 53 rebels and forced the remaining SPLA men to flee into the bush, the state-owned Al-Anbaa daily newspaper reported. The SPLA has […]

One of the more important themes to emerge from this week’s Judicial Service Commission hearings was the extent to which many judges are still failing to appreciate the importance of the 1994 Constitution. Having been steeped in Roman Dutch and English law for so long, they are still wary of a document that forces them […]

Thebe Mabanga investigates the pros and cons of immigration I am at the Il Pavignione, on the 10th floor of the Michelangelo hotel at Johannesburg’s property hotbed, Sandton. Excuse me for stating the obvious, but this place drips with opulence. Not just the credit-fuelled kind found a few floors below us at the Sandton City […]

innovations Handspring is taking its range of personal digital assistants (PDAs) upmarket with a pair of highly specified new models. Available from Handspring’s website now (www.handspring.com) and due in the stores in November are the company’s first colour PDA, the $449 Handspring Visor Prism, and its fastest model, the $299 Handspring Visor Platinum. The products […]

His body wracked by drugs, Diego Maradona would love to return home to a quiet life – but it will never happen Simon Kuper ‘It was as if we had beaten a country, more than just a football team,” writes Diego Maradona in his new autobiography. “Although we had said before the game that football […]

Gavin Foster paralympics An agreement signed during the 2000 Paralympics now drawing to a close in Sydney might finally bring about what most people mistakenly think already exists – the unification of the Olympic Games and the Paralympics. Just 16 athletes, most of them crippled World War II veterans, competed in the first disabled games […]

Peter Dickson ‘Pot holes for the next 186km” is the wicked promise of eco-tourism’s new Wild Coast warrior, one that offers an alternative trip to the young European backpackers who are beginning to discover the Transkei in droves. Openly marketed as The Marijuana Trail – the so- called Transkei Gold variety is regarded by imbibers […]

Matthew Engel in the city going crazy over a game of baseball If you wander around the cheapo art shops on Seventh or Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, you can probably still find a framed print of the famous old New Yorker cover which plays tricks with perspective to depict the world as seen from the […]

Mail & Guardian reporters The G7 industrialised nations intervened on behalf of the euro last month to test whether the clamour for United States assets, which has been boosting the dollar on the foreign exchanges, had been overdone, the Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Eddie George, said recently. Since the euro was launched, […]

1970: The release of Cotton Comes to Harlem and Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song herald the start of the blaxploitation genre. 1971: Shaft is the first big-budget blaxploitation film. Isaac Hayes wins Oscar for the music. Shaft’s Big Score! and Shaft in Africa follow. 1972: Two of America’s biggest pop stars provide the soundtracks to […]

David Le Page The abundance of unscrupulous players in the fitness industry, and its failure to set about self-regulation, could make life a lot tougher for the new owners of the Health and Racquet Club (H&RC), whoever they may be. The Department of Trade and Industry has proposed regulations in terms of the Unfair Business […]

Eldene Eyssell and Elisabeth Lickindorf A Stellenbosch team has found a fast, accurate test for the fungus known as “black goo” which has been devastating the world’s vineyards. Slow to grow, the deadly fungus (Phaeomoniella chlamydospora) is difficult to detect in its early stages. Like cholesterol that blocks arteries in humans, the fungus attacks the […]

Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION These last two Tuesdays have seen the broadcast of the awesome BBC production of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast on M-Net. The detail, the imagination and technical tour de force of this series is hard to praise sufficiently. It was received to rapturous critical acclaim in the United Kingdom and sets its own benchmark […]

Michael Berger Crossfire The Mail & Guardian editorial of October 20 to 26 sees the Middle East situation in terms of apartheid, and the Oslo peace accord as an unjust settlement, presumably even as an interim arrangement in an ongoing evolutionary process to finding accommodation for both Jews and Arabs in an inflammable region. This […]

Jaspreet Kindra Thirty-three amakhosi previously aligned to the Inkatha Freedom Party are standing as Democratic Alliance (DA) candidates in December’s local government elections on the South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal. Lack of delivery and development, unemployment and growing disillusionment with the ruling IFP and the African National Congress government have prompted the traditional leaders to seek […]

SOUTH African authorities have confiscated about R1bn worth of hashish destined for Montreal in the country’s biggest drug bust, police said this week. Acting on a tip-off, police and customs and harbour officials at Durban intercepted a container and recovered 11.5 tonnes of compressed hashish in packets labelled “milk” and hidden under linen in the […]

AFP and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Ivory Coast | Thursday IVORY Coast socialist leader Laurent Gbagbo, who has claimed power after junta leader Robert Guei fled the country, faces immediate calls for a new election from rival candidates barred from the ballot papers. While the official results from Sunday’s presidential race have yet to be announced, Gbagbo […]

EMMANUAL GIROUD, Dar Es Salaam | Thursday A DECADE of liberalisation has earned Tanzania, which goes to the polls this weekend, a reputation as a star pupil of the International Monetary Fund, yet its people remain among the poorest in the world. Annual per capita income hovers between $200 and $250. More than half the […]

SUSPENDED Mpumalanga Parks Board (MPB) chief Alan Gray has won yet another reprieve when a disciplinary hearing scheduled for this week was postponed to November 1. Gray was suspended in September 1998 for his role in the illegal use of 31 game reserves as collateral for a series of dodgy promissory notes worth over R1,3bn. […]

THE outbreak of deadly Ebola, which has claimed 64 lives in northern Uganda should be over within six weeks, an expert with the World Health Organisation (WHO) said this week – but a communicable diseases expert who is just back from northern Uganda said a close eye would then need to be kept on the […]

CRAIG BISHOP, Ncome | Thursday THE national deputy director general of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, Professor Musa Xulu, has been charged with misconduct and suspended following a forensic audit into tender processes totalling R2m. Director general Dr Rob Adam said the contracts were awarded by the former National Monuments Council, now the SA Heritage […]

AN alleged rapist has escaped arrest after trapping two policemen in a shack and opening a box of bees, police said. The policemen were inside the shack at the Duduza informal settlement near Nigel when the suspect closed the door and opened the box of bees. A 26-year-old alleged rape victim and her daughter were […]

ONE in every hundred pregnant women in Angola dies each year following complications linked to pregnancy and birth, according to a report. Many of them die after undergoing abortions in poor hygiene conditions and after suffering haemorrhages, said medical expert Adelaide Carvalho, who has carried out research in Angolan hospitals and medical centres. Only 50% […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday THE South African Revenue Services (Sars) has proposed substantive amendments to its proposals to shift this country to a worldwide tax system, including concessions for headquarter companies and contract workers. Briefing Parliament’s finance portfolio committee, SARS law administration general manager Kosie Louw defended the government’s reasons for changing the […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Thursday THE growing economic meltdown and attendant food shortages in Zimbabwe have eroded public support for President Robert Mugabe and his campaign to confiscate prime agricultural land from white commercial farmers, a hard-hitting international opinion poll has found. The poll, based on a sample of 2 000 Zimbabwean adults in both […]

OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Johannesburg | Thursday CORRUPTION in South Africa has reached “epidemic” proportions, demanding hard-hitting laws and a more ethical environment, say business and political leaders. Addressing a two-day Anti-Corruption Conference for national and provincial Public Works Department officials, National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka said the urgency of addressing the problem and creating […]

ANGOLAN security forces have arrested two South Africans accused of bringing cocaine worth an estimated $2m into the country. Customs officials found 60kg of the drug hidden in containers on a flight from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil by the Angolan national carrier TAAG. The South Africans, who were not named, are accused of organising […]

RWANDAN forces fighting with Congolese rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have lost control of Pepa in the south of Katanga province, Rwanda’s foreign minister said. The Rwandan army is backing rebels opposed to the regime of DRC President Laurent Kabila in the civil war which has raged for two years. The RCD […]

PRESIDENTIAL spokesman Parks Mankahlana has died after a long illness at his parent’s home in the Eastern Cape, the African National Congress has announced. Mankahlana, a former president of the ANC’s Youth League, served as President Nelson Mandela’s media spokesman for his entire term between 1994 and 1999. He worked with Mbeki until earlier this […]

THE Mozambican government has predicted weaker than expected economic growth this year as a result of the catastrophic floods that hit the southern and central parts of the country in February. The government initially hoped for growth of between five and six percent, but the current projection is for 3.8%. Total losses due to the […]

THE flamboyant owner of a Swazi premier league soccer club, Nkomazi Sundowns, has appeared briefly in the Mbabane Magistrate’s court in connection with being in possession of 63 bags of dagga. Charles Mashesha Nhlengetfwa, who is well known for his upmarket lifestyle and expensive cars, appeared in court with two players from the team and […]