Iden Wetherell When Zimbabwe concluded its bloody election campaign in June the country heaved a sigh of relief as a return to normality beckoned. With more than 30 dead and thousands beaten and displaced in the ruling Zanu-PF party’s campaign of rural terror, it was hoped the country would at last find some peace. That […]
Bolstered by President Thabo Mbeki’s prevarication, the Aids dissidents’ arguments are fuelling confusion in South Africa – but they have little scientific merit Belinda Beresford HIV does not exist. If it does exist it does not cause Aids. The disease Aids does not exist. There is no epidemic nor are there deaths. There is just […]
Piers Pigou Apartheid assassin Ferdi Barnard’s revelations before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) amnesty committee this week about destabilisation before the 1994 election have again raised questions about the extent of security force participation in the Boipatong massacre. Barnard claimed that hitmen provided guns to Zulu hostel dwellers to carry out a series of […]
innovations You know what you want. So just asking for it could be a lot simpler than having to go out, scour an auction website like ebay.com and then bid on it. M-Web has introduced an interesting twist on the now-familiar auction site in the form of iWant. You post your desire and sellers then […]
Paul Kirk Amid growing complaints about unchecked air pollution, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Mohammed Valli Moosa has vowed to crack down on one of the country’s worst offenders – Eskom – as part of wide-ranging plans to combat the problem. Moosa said: “It would be unfair for us to crack down on industry […]
Earlier this year Khadija Magardie wrote of a dispute at the University of Natal over the suspension of a senior academic.
weapons Nawaal Deane and Roshila Pillay ‘Clear … aim… fire!” shouts the instructor, and with a series of explosive shots, the shooting session begins. A group of black 30-something women have discovered a new hobby: shooting. The shooting range is becoming a prime hang- out for women serious about protecting themselves. Standing in a row […]
Barry Streek At least 1,5-million African people fled their homes during the first eight months of this year – an average of 50 000 new refugees every week – because of war, violence and political repression, says the United States Committee for Refugees (USCR). At least 10 African countries suffered significant population flight between January […]
carrying these days Nawaal Deane and Roshila Pillay It’s a liquorice allsorts bag of tricks when it comes to guns nowadays. You can get a pink-coated gun with a gold grip, or for a less fashion-conscious gunslinger, a pistol with sliding action and automatic reload. Gun ownership is soaring, at just over 190 000 yearly, […]
President tells party caucus that Western interests are seeking to discredit him and South Africa Howard Barrell President Thabo Mbeki believes the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is part of a conspiracy to promote the view that HIV causes Aids. Mbeki also thinks that the CIA is working covertly alongside the big US pharmaceutical […]
President Thabo Mbeki and Tony Leon have been writing to each other again, arguing over HIV/Aids. They found a lot else to disagree about. Their latest correspondence, 54 pages of it, much of it technical medical and legal argument, was tabled in Parliament on Thursday. We publish excerpts You may … be unaware of the […]
A recent article has highlighted how Aids statistics can be manipulated by dissidents to prove their point of view Belinda Beresford There are damned lies. There are statistics. And then there is noseweek. That venerable organ of expos’s and investigative journalism has itself been used in a malicious distortion of facts to advance the arguments […]
Howard Barrell The crisis in the United Democratic Movement deepened this week as leaders of its two warring factions drew up battle lines and party president Bantu Holomisa prepared to visit its Eastern Cape stronghold to explain the suspension of the province’s leadership. Prime movers in the two factions – a “populist” faction headed by […]
Transformation of the media in the new South Africa has become a controversial topic Sean Jacobs Under apartheid, white South Africans enjoyed a racialised “public sphere” that excluded black people. Political media and news were geared to whites and media content largely reflected the skewed balance of power relations in society at that time. The […]
Thebe Mabanga and Ntuthuko Maphumulo It took R60-million, four years training, a 14-hour flight and one month down under for the South African Olympic heroes to return with only five medals. On Thursday they were welcomed at the Civic Theatre by a few invited guests, a clutch of curious bystanders and some Johannesburg municipality employees […]
Mail & Guardian reporters A former South African army colonel accused by the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, of supplying weapons to rebels in Sierra Leone has written to the US envoy vigorously denying the claims. The former South African Defence Force (SADF) officer, Fred Rindel, has told Holbrooke that the […]
Barry Streek Last-minute bargaining over the details of South Africa’s new gun control law continued this week, particularly over the numbers of weapons owned by people such as farmers and the protection of women and children in cases of violence. The latest amendments, due to be voted on in the safety and security portfolio committee […]
Khadija Magardie Mail & Guardian editor Phillip van Niekerk and The Star’s associate editor Lizeka Mda this week served court papers on Minister of Public Enterprises Jeff Radebe and the African National Congress, kicking off a lawsuit that could set a crucial precedent in South African defamation law. Van Niekerk and Mda are asking the […]
Andy Colquhoun Harry Viljoen is set to irrevocably change the face of South African rugby when he becomes Springbok coach in Cape Town today. Viljoen is likely to announce that he will be taking 10 black players in the 40-strong Springbok squad for the four-Test end-of- season tour to Argentina, Ireland, Wales and England. And […]
He is one of the greats of 20th century music, but his career has soared and dipped, as has his personal life, encompassing political protest, religious conversion and rumours of secret marriages. Adam Sweeting on a ‘Byronic hero’ who, in his 60th year, is surprised to find himself winning over a new generation It would […]
David Le Page african frontiers It’s all about detective work, says one of the astronomers involved in the building of the Southern African Large Telescope (Salt). As they labour on a Karoo mountain top building Salt over the next five years, South Africa’s intergalactic Hercule Poirots know they are essentially building a great big magnifying […]
Barry Streek A controversial proposal by the board of the SABC to refer senior appointments to the Cabinet for approval is likely to be challenged in Parliament. Chair of the SABC board Vincent Maphai told the National Assembly’s portfolio committee on communications in Parliament this week that the appointment of three senior executives, including its […]
EMSIE FERREIRA, Cape Town | Thursday THE South African government is “spitting in the face” of people who were oppressed, impoverished and tortured by the apartheid regime by not paying them promised reparations. Speaking at a two-day conference in Cape Town called “The Unfinished Business of the TRC”, Judge Dumisa Ntsebeza, a former Truth and […]
THE Namibian Minerals Corporation (NAMCO) has launched a project to comb the ocean floor for new underwater diamond deposits. NAMCO, Africa’s second largest diamond producer, says the latest survey technology and three-dimensional images of the ocean floor enabled geologists to identify 163 areas with diamond potential, it said. Namibia’s underwater diamonds, which experts say are […]
AN Angolan police officer has shot an 80-year-old fisherman 30 times after the man refused to give the officer some bananas, the state-run Jornal de Angola reported. Joao Lando had just taken a load of bananas out of his canoe on the Angolan side of the Congo River, when Domingos Chiloia stopped him and asked […]
SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki has held talks with his Senegalese counterpart Abdoulaye Wade on peace and stability in west Africa, particularly in Ivory coast. Mbeki and Wade were part of an OAU delegation to go to the Ivorian capital, Abidjan, to attempt to defuse widespread tension in Ivory Coast ahead of general elections due […]
THE World Bank has placed Zimbabwe on non-payment status, noting that the country was behind on the payment of $47m. The bank said the principal amount outstanding on loans to Zimbabwe from the bank’s main lending arm totalled $452m, with overdue payments worth $45m. The bank’s concessional lending unit, the International Development Association, had made […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT and AFP, Port Elizabeth | Thursday THOUGHTLESS government policies are driving South Africa’s farmers to bankruptcy, outgoing Agri SA president Chris du Toit has warned, pleading with government to “just leave us alone.” Opening the annual congress of the farmers’ organisation, Du Toit said agriculture was seen as an endless source of wealth. […]
DENMARK’S Appeals Court has upheld an earlier ruling to extradite a former Rwandan army officer to the UN war crimes tribunal in Tanzania, court officials in the western town of Viborg said. Innocent Sagahatu is wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on charges of participating in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, as […]
ITALY has pledged to cancel up to $116m Uganda owes to creditors in the Paris Club of donor nations, Italian ambassador to Uganda Luigi Napolitano said. The debt represented over 80% of the total Uganda owes to the club. Uganda’s total foreign debt runs at close to $4bn. But Napolitano said that for the country […]
GRACA Machel, former first lady of both Mozambique and South Africa, opens a 400-strong Global Summit of Women in Johannesburg on Thursday which will concentrate on economic issues. The three-day conference, being held in Africa for the first time, will include an economic profile of the African woman, issues surrounding e-commerce and e-business, infrastructure as […]
BRITISH airline Virgin Atlantic is set to take a major chunk of the lucrative Lagos-London route currently dominated by British Airways (BA). Virgin Atlantic CEO Richard Branson said the Nigerian aviation authorities have already approved the airline’s proposal to fly the route. He said BA’s dominance of the lucrative route was not to the advantage […]