Staff Reporter

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday THE office of the South African has declared war on an internationally syndicated journalist, author and former Oxford professor, RW “Bill” Johnson, for suggesting that Thabo Mbeki is “off his rocker,” The Sunday Independent reports. Johnson, the director of the Helen Suzman Foundation and a freelance journalist who writes a […]

DEBT-ridden Nigeria Airways has started to settle its “critical” foreign debts ahead of its privatisation, the minister of aviation, Kema Chikwe announced. “We will ensure that that the airline is not privatised as a scrap and this explains why we are strengthening its asset base prior to privatisation,” he said. Recently, the national carrier also […]

SOUTHERN African heads of state and leading international business and finance figures will gather in Windhoek for the International Herald Tribune’s sixth annual southern Africa Trade and Investment summit from October 9 to 11. The summit, which has become of the most important and respected investment forums in the region, provides unique networking opportunities for […]

FROM Friday, smokers who light up in an enclosed public place outside designated smoking areas are liable for a fine of at least R200, according to harsh new tobacco regulations published in the Government Gazette. The new laws, which are effective immediately, also ban all tobacco advertising and sponsorships, and make the sale of tobacco […]

REUTERS AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Sasolburg | Saturday A WHITE South African accused of dragging a black man to his death behind a truck has been remanded for psychiatric tests, sparking clashes between black protesters and police. Businessman Pieter Odendaal, 44, had been scheduled to appear before a Sasolburg court on Thursday, but the hearing was […]

MALAWI and Mozambique reopened a railway that reconnects landlocked Malawi to an Indian Ocean port with a short and cheap route that civil war once made impassable. Presidents Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique and Bakili Muluzi of Malawi signed an agreement launching the Nacala Develepoment Corridor, as they have dubbed the road and railway linking Malawi […]

AFP AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, New York | Saturday SOUTH Africa’s former president Nelson Mandela called on rebels in Burundi to cease fire, saying they were killing only civilians and not hurting their military enemies. Mandela, who mediated in last month’s peace talks, held in Arusha, northern Tanzania, said: “Now that there is a peace agreement, […]

THE head of the anti-corruption unit in the office of Northern Province Premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi has appeared in court on charges of corruption. Paul Tanyani Nenzhelele, 34, was not asked to plead and his bail of R1 000 was extended. Nenzhelele is accused of promising a woman a job in return for R1 000. The […]

AFP, Cape Town | Friday A MAJOR obstacle in the country’s economic growth, besides unemployment, is HIV and Aids, South African Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni said. Speaking at a graduation ceremony at the University of the North at Turfloop, Mboweni said that despite the epidemic, South Africa had the best chance of all the […]

Pule waga Mabe The vice-chancellor of the University of the North, former Truth and Reconciliation Commission commissioner Biki Minyuku, has filed a review application in the Pretoria High Court against his suspension. Minyuku was suspended last December without knowing the charges against him, or a disciplinary hearing. Minyuku’s attorney, Solly Manamela, says the university disregarded […]

Timothy Trengove-Jones CROSSFIRE The clearest indication of the health of this democracy is to be found in discourse surrounding the HIV/Aids pandemic. President Thabo Mbeki has told Parliament, the country and the world that this government’s policies on HIV/Aids are “based on the thesis that HIV causes Aids”. He has also conceded that the government’s […]

Gavin Evans The task of increasing a country’s medal quotient starts at the top. International precedent suggests you can even pull it off without a thriving grassroots base or deep tradition of participation. Take Britain, for example. Four years ago in Atlanta it experienced a disaster of similar proportions to South Africa’s Sydney effort. But […]

friday Golf: German Masters, at 2pm on SuperSport1 (SS1/CSN) Rugby: Currie Cup, Super Eights, round two, Pumas vs Cheetahs at 7pm on SS1/CSN saturday Cricket: Second one-day international (ODI), Zimbabwe vs New Zealand, at 9.25am on SS2 Rugby: New Zealand NPC series, Auckland vs North Harbour at 6.35am, Waikato vs Canterbury at 7pm (delayed), Northland […]

Brenda Atkinson review OFTHEWEEK Since coming back to Johannesburg in 1996 after an absence of more than 20 years, Rodney Place’s work has been characterised by lacerating irony, his perspective that of the city’s prodigal son, returned from his adventures only to find that he can’t get to the fatted calf for the security gates […]

If found guilty in a departmental hearing, Piet Meyer could be dismissed for misconduct before he is tried next year on a string of criminal charges Paul Kirk Disgraced and suspended former head of police organised crime units in KwaZulu- Natal, Senior Superintendent Piet Meyer, is in trouble again – this time for allegedly hacking […]

David Le Page AFRICAN FRONTIERS To slow the melting of the polar ice-caps, build some ceilings in Soweto. This is one of the implications of a study on environmentally friendly low-cost housing recently commissioned by the national Department of Housing. But it’s not the most important – making home environments more comfortable is a far […]

Personal bests, not medals, were the order of the day for South Africa’s Olympic team Grant Shimmin It was the strangest of situations. Two South African 400m athletes had qualified for the finals of the men’s and women’s events at the Olympics, both for the first time, and each had run outside the gold medal […]

experiments Fiona Macleod South Africa is earmarked for experiments on animals that have already seen thousands of them dying agonising deaths. The experiments involve pumping human genes into days-old piglets and then transplanting their hearts into baboons and monkeys. Top-secret documents by scientists researching the process, called xenotransplantation, show that thousands of animals have died […]

Mercedes Sayagu’s Body Language I have discovered the new erogenous zone for the new millennium. I am embarrassed it took me so long. But I may be excused: I hit the party circuit only a few months ago, when my last lover dumped me. In more than one way, I was a casualty of the […]

As a teenager, Naomi Klein was a dedicated mall rat, fixated on designer labels. A decade later she is the author of a life- changing book on anti-corporatism. Katharine Viner meets the woman who is reinventing politics for a new generation >From the age of six, growing up in Canada, Naomi Klein was obsessed with […]

Tony Leon CROSSFIRE Retiring United States Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once memorably observed: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” So, too, with Crossfire (“Democracy requires wisdom too”, September 22 to 28). In order to concertina my words into his argument, Firoz Cachalia is guilty, at best, of elliptical reasoning […]

Barry Streek South Africa’s tougher new gun control regime is rapidly taking shape in Parliament in Cape Town. Prospective gun- owners will have to be older than in the past, demonstrate that they are competent to have a firearm and will hold a licence for a fixed period only, rather than for life. It seems […]

Paul Kirk Car manufacturers, environmentalists and the oil giant Sasol look set to clash over a controversial petrol additive that is dangerous, destructive and a poisonous menace to people and cars. Sasol says, however, that the manganese- based additive MMT is a safe and cheap substitute for lead in petrol. The company is preparing to […]

morality Cedric Mayson Spirit Level Being good is not just an individual matter. Morality is also a communal problem demanding a communal answer because our dos and don’ts are determined by the society we live in. Just as many South Africans still live in racial enclaves that direct their politics and behaviour, so is our […]

Merryman Kunene One of South Africa’s biggest Olympic disappointments came from the under-23 soccer team who failed to reach the quarterfinals after a couple of bad results against so-called weaker sides (Japan and Slovakia), and one glorious win over Brazil. “For me it is difficult to comment on the other sports and how the National […]

Mike Berger A SECOND LOOK The issues of race and racism in our public life seem inescapable. Yet ordinary South Africans manifest an amazing ability to relate to one another as members of the same human family; often much more so than would be suggested from the content of the media. Nevertheless, it is clear […]

cass abrahams cooks cape malay: food from Africa by Cass Abrahams (Metz Press) This is an updated edition of the previous hardback The Culture and Cuisine of the Cape Malays. Abrahams has single-handedly managed to lift Cape Malay cooking to more glamorous heights by distributing her oh-so-well-packaged spices and condiments to snooty Cape whole food […]

The art of inefficient building in South Africa is by no means restricted to low- cost housing. Like clothes and cars, the design of modern South African buildings is only partly to provide utility – it’s also important to signal the status and fine taste of their owners. In doing so they have lost a […]

Studies estimate that by 2015 more than 10- million South Africans will have died of Aids-related causes Howard Barrell The HIV/Aids pandemic is drastically affecting South Africa’s economic growth and future prospects and will eat into the wealth of those fortunate enough to survive it. The havoc being wrought by HIV/Aids means that in 2010, […]

Valentine Cascarino FOOD Anyone who has cruised Africa extensively would agree that Ethiopian food comes with an unbelieveable sucker punch. Instead of the humdrum and gruesome starch that is the standard formula in many African restaurants, Ethiopian delicacies, on the contrary, are deliciously spicy. Probably because, like coffee, some of the world’s famous spices originated […]

Davina Cohen Giant monitors and telephones marked the dawning of a new era of techno-music last weekend. It didn’t happen by way of an onslaught of entrepreneurial ravers of the popular dance scene, but through a fusion of communications technology and live performance. An array of British and South African sponsors combined forces to present […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Contemporary Western horror of eating people could be an aberration, and has a lot to answer for in the world of anthropology, which is a Western creation. Evidence for cannibalism abounds – even if circumstantial – both from the modern world and throughout history, but academic anthropology has found itself in […]