Staff Reporter

Nawaal Deane, Pule waga Mabe, Ntuthuko Maphumulo and Roshila Pillay A young woman with a box full of condoms is having fun on the rocky streets of Soshanguve, north of Pretoria, handing out free condoms to passers-by. It is Saturday morning, and most people are still suffering from their Friday hangovers. As the woman enters […]

Ebrahim Harvey LEFTFIELD While some of its research and recommendations are useful, the report on the investigation into racism in the media, released last week by the Human Rights Commission, is in its theoretical, methodological and analytical approach badly flawed. However, the recommendation for legislation to govern the media will be a veritable legal, moral, […]

Emma Brockes Body Language At Club Sirius, the dating agency for “single, well-educated and articulate people”, success isn’t measured by the number of members who marry, but by the number who recommend the service to a friend. By recommending it, members are seen by the club’s management to have faced out a powerful taboo. That […]

Duvall Pettway Fashion It’s that time of the year again, when the South African fashion industry comes out to see what the country’s top designers have on offer, for spring and summer. This year the 4th annual South African Fashion Week (SAFW) is accompanied by the first South African Fashion Exhibition. Both are taking place […]

The Rand Daily Mail fought a lonely battle on the ‘slippery slope’ of opposition to the National Party government in the 1960s. In his memoir, War of Words, Benjamin Pogrund recalls what it was like to be part of this publication The telephone on my desk in the Rand Daily Mail newsroom rang. I picked […]

Justin Arenstein Mpumalanga Premier Ndaweni Mahlangu remained tight-lipped about top-secret corruption investigations into his predecessor Mathews Phosa this week as the province’s latest financial scandal erupted. The new R120-million investment scandal was masterminded during Phosa’s reign but does not appear to be directly linked to the politician, who entered private business after being ousted from […]

Ivor Powell As the world gears up to ban diamonds from conflict zones, the Canadian government is being accused of manipulating a United Nations humanitarian campaign against Africa’s so-called “blood diamonds” to the benefit of its own fledgling industry. The UN’s report, published earlier this year, was initiated and headed by Canada’s ambassador to the […]

Cedric Mayson Spirit Level The Salvation Army is full of red tape. Being responsible for the lives and money of other people it has systems and procedures to be followed like any huge bureaucratic organisation. But Major Lena Jwili ignored it all when a young girl arrived at her home behind Baragwanath taxi rank in […]

Glenda Daniels For the first time in South Africa domestic workers will be given accredited training once a new research project about to be undertaken by the Ministry of Labour gets under way next week. The Department of Labour is doing research after it was approached by the South African Domestic Workers’ Union to upgrade […]

Archaeologists are trying to find what really happened at the battle of Isandlwana Paul Kirk Amid the noise of the battle, the screams of the dying and the roar of a cannon, a desperate soldier of the 24th Regiment of Foot took shelter behind the two large boulders on the Isandlwana battlefield and poured five […]

Three separate stories in the news this week are worth tying together. The first is the case of Mosoko Rampuru (37), who was allegedly murdered in Sasolburg by being dragged behind a truck. His white employer has been charged with the killing. If the charge is substantiated and the employer is held to be mad, […]

Paul Kirk The KwaZulu-Natal government’s investigation into a series of Mail & Guardian exposs on Prince Gideon Zulu has found the MEC for welfare and population development squeaky clean – without checking the bank accounts that implicated him in the first place. Meanwhile, the controversial prince has blamed the rampant chaos in the provincial Department […]

show again Deon Potgieter boxing Cassius Baloyi might be softly spoken but he’s no longer the “shy guy” of his nickname. He provided the most scintillating action in the last triple- world-title bill held at Carnival City in May and intends stealing the show again on Friday, September 1. Although his opponent this time round […]

Andrew Gilder On the face of it the recent demise of the State Theatre ballet and dance companies, while politically expedient, seems to be a “giant leap backwards” for South African dance. From one perspective this is true. More than half of the professional dance contracts available in the country were lost. The other point […]

Glenda Daniels Engaging the State and Business: The Labour Movement and Co- determination in contemporary South Africa edited by Glenn Adler (Witwatersrand University Press) This book offers a comprehensive and concise view of contemporary debates within the labour movement and alliance politics in South Africa today. It captures the essence of co-determination by airing the […]

David Beresford Another country The end of the world is nigh and will be brought about by wind. This latest triumph in speculative physics (or is it meteorology?) arises from contemplation of the vexed question of what happened to the dinosaurs. For those who are not up to speed on this great scientific debate I […]

The HRC’s conference was characterised by much soul-searching about the definitions of racism Sechaba ka’Nkosi South Africa’s whites went on trial this week on charges of racism when black leaders attending the Human Rights Commission (HRC) conference on racism questioned their attitude towards black citizens and their willingness to reach out and reconcile. Unease and […]

Natasha Distiller crossfire Khadija Magardie’s article, “Put an end to prostitution by removing the demand” (August 18 to 24) contains a number of interesting legal and moral assumptions that warrant exploration. Decriminalising and regulating the adult commercial sex-work industry are important steps towards dealing with the violence and exploitation that occur in the industry. Decriminalisation […]

Nicky Blumenfeld If you’ve ever visited Cuba, Colombia, Mexico or Brazil, you’d realise that there’s a lot more to the Americas than the United States and it appears that with the inevitable influx of aliens, the “developed” world seems to have realised that there’s rhythm beyond its mainstream borders. Likewise, the recent explosion of Latin […]

Jeffrey Ndumo During the Oliver Tambo Memorial Lecture, on August 11 2000, President Thabo Mbeki delivered a fierce speech which had two main themes. The first was to chastise the “black petit bourgeoisie” and native intellectuals for reducing themselves to the status of foot-lickers of white capital at the expense of a contribution to the […]

Ivor Powell Abattle is developing between the government and Parliament as the state prepares a package of new laws to remove checks and balances introduced in the armaments industry to prevent corruption. If accepted, the already tabled Conventional Arms Control Bill and the draft Armscor Bill and Defence Related Industries legislation will allow the government […]

He was one of the greatest bowlers of all time – maybe even the greatest. So how come most of us have never heard of Bart King? Martin Kettle It was once said of Bart King that he was the best-known American of his time in England. When he went to Britain, people would recognise […]

Rosanne Buchanan LIFESTYLE Convention centres are usually horrible, sprawling spaces with vast, dark meeting rooms and tasteless dining halls. But the newly opened R400-million Sandton Convention Centre (SCC) is modern, airy and impressive looking. The 10-storey SCC already has a line-up of important events until the end of the year, including the National Conference on […]

THE Zambian kwacha is expected to slide further against the dollar in the final four months of the year amid huge corporate and retail demand for dollars and lack of central bank intervention, senior dealers said. They said the kwacha could close the year as low as 3500 against the U.S. unit, from 3250 now […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi Newly elected general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) Slumko Nondwangu this week began an uphill battle to stamp his authority on a union increasingly divided by tensions over ideology. At 36 Nondwangu assumes a difficult task: continuing the legacy of his predecessors that has made Numsa the […]

Jaspreet Kindra The tensions within the tripartite alliance are increasingly being blamed on President Thabo Mbeki, who is perceived by other alliance leaders as having systematically cut them off from debate on economic policy. Notwithstanding this view, expressed by several senior members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu)and the South African Communist […]

Khadija Magardie A landmark decision by the Constitutional Court last week endorsing crucial crime-fighting legislation brings to an end a string of legal attacks on the law. The ruling, which stemmed from a raid on controversial tycoon Billy Rautenbach, sets a precedent for similar cases in which targets of criminal investigations might use the constitutionally […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT and REUTERS, Johannesburg | Friday JOHNNIC Communications, which is preparing to bid for South Africa’s second fixed-line telephone licence, has raised R3.8bn from a rights offer to consolidate control of acquisitions and eliminate debt. The offer, which was 78.78% subscribed, saw more than R800m rand raised from minority shareholders, with the balance being […]

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing into the crash was biased, crude and ignored the maxims of balance and fair play, writes Robert Kirby That the transcript of the secret Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings into the Helderberg accident has been kept from public view comes as no surprise. What is far more surprising […]

Nawaal Deane and Ntuthuko Maphumulo Statistics show that over the past 15 years South African youth have been having sex at an increasingly younger age. Of sexually experienced children polled in the Beyond Awareness Campaign survey, 10% said they had had their first sexual experience at or below the age of 11 years. In the […]

Thami Mazwai One understands Cosatu supremo Zwelinzima Vavi’s overriding passion for the welfare and well-being of workers. After all, fighting for workers is his profession as well as his bread and butter. But is he not being a bit myopic? There is no point in protecting rights if these result in investor wariness and the […]

INFORMATION technology giant Dimension Data (Didata) has become the third largest South African company in terms of market capitalisation, replacing diamond giant De Beers. This comes in the wake of Didata’s share price increase of nearly 5% to R68 a share, which brings the market capitalisation to R78.77bn. De Beers’ market capitalisation stands at R77.40bn. […]