Literary circles are agog at James Thackara’s new novel. But would they care if it were 80 pages rather than 800? DJ Taylor The recent revelation that after two decades of sweat and expectation the novelist James Thackara is ready to publish his 800-page work, The Book of Kings, will come as no surprise to […]
The opportunity to institute a constructive policy to deal with the HIV/Aids epidemic is slipping out of reach as politicians and scientists argue over who knows best Mail & Guardian reporters Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang confirmed last week that her department is busy setting up a panel of approximately 30 local and international experts […]
The tragic story of an 11-year-old girl whose leg was mangled by a tractor has spotlighted the use of child labour on South African farms Marianne Merten ‘Sometimes I forget the leg is gone,” says 11-year-old Waronice van Wyk. “I am unhappy, but I’m getting used to it.” She lost half her right leg in […]
SOME 63% of Zimbabweans want a change of government and 65% want President Robert Mugabe to step down, according to an opinion poll released in Harare on Friday. The poll was conducted ahead of parliamentary elections next month by Probe Market Research, which is linked to Gallup International, on behalf of South Africa’s Helen Suzman […]
Shaun de Waal MOVIE OFTHEWEEK We have become accustomed, over many years now, to the sound of old-time jazz – accompanied by those plain white-on-black credits, always in the same slightly ornate, old-fashioned type – opening a Woody Allen movie. Now, for the first time, in Sweet and Lowdown, these jaunty strains signal the beginning […]
“Didn’t it evoke any laughter?” – Barney Pityana to Claudia Braude on the Mail & Guardian’s Machiavelli cartoon which she said demonised Thabo Mbeki “I wasn’t looking at that.” – Braude replies “If I had been a journalist I would have embraced a process like this.” – Braude on the Human Rights Commission probe into […]
Andy Capostagno RUGBY Two weeks into the Super 12 and already a few predictions are looking sick. The form lines seemed to suggest that this would be Australia’s year, but the Reds have been humiliated twice, the Brumbies lost at Canberra and the Waratahs won one and lost one on their South African tour. The […]
This weekend Cape Town city will razzle to the sound of chainsaws, DJs and one- man bands Erika Schutze Staring at the blackened face, woollen hat and scruffy overalls of Luke Jane I’m reminded of a chimney sweep from a novel by Charles Dickens, only he’s slightly more menacing. And the Blue Temple Night Festival […]
NETWATCH The world is filling with computers at a rate unmatched by the proliferation of touch typists. Which, along with poor office furniture, Ricoffy and fluorescent lighting, can add to the discomfort of work. If you’re still a keyboard two-finger hunter and pecker, advance your interaction with computers and finally master the keyboard. There are […]
THE French warship Jeanne d’Arc has been rerouted from Mozambique to Madagascar to bring aid to hundreds of thousands of cyclone victims and is expected there within the next few days. The helicopter-carrier left flood-stricken Mozambique late on Wednesday for the Indian Ocean island, 800 kilometres across the Mozambique Channel. The vessel had been in […]
John Young CRICKET England’s lack of a Test-class all- rounder has been the subject of more than one article during their tour of South Africa. Andrew Flintoff’s tour ended with his foot in in plaster, so we won’t know for some time whether he has learned enough during this tour to become what England need. […]
John Matshikiza WITH THE LID OFF I am not simply returning a compliment when I say that it was somewhat uplifting to see Aggrey Klaaste stand up in St George’s church, Parktown, Johannesburg, last Tuesday afternoon, and deliver a warm and honest tribute to the late Jim Bailey. It was a particularly striking gesture because […]
M&G reporter The English Academy of Southern Africa awarded Alex Sudheim the Pringle Award for 1999, on March 7, for his reviews published in the Mail & Guardian’s Friday in 1998. Sudheim’s work was honoured for its widely diverse nature. Stories he has written for Friday were named, specifically his look at Durban’s Indian cinema […]
according to public Barry Streek After the churches, the media are the most trusted institution in South Africa – more so than all levels government, the police, the defence force and the of courts. These surprising findings were revealed this week by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) when it released its latest Public Opinion […]
Recent guerrilla attacks are affecting the burgeoning tourism industry in northern Namibia Angus Begg Since the killing of three French tourist children and a number of medical aid workers in separate incidents on January 3, the tourist industry in one of Southern Africa’s fastest-growing, exclusive wilderness lodge destinations, Namibia’s Caprivi Strip, has taken a hammering. […]
THE UN Security Council will hold closed-door consultations on Friday on the situation in Western Sahara, where several hundred people recently held demonstrations. The United Nations has been trying for more than eight years to organise a referendum to decide whether the former Spanish colony should be incorporated into Morocco, which controls most of the […]
David Gow Forget the gearstick and bewildering array of switches and buttons you have scarcely mastered before buying a new model. The car of the future will come with a single joystick to activate Web-based data services; it will even talk to you and tell you where to go. Within 10 years at most, the […]
A draft Bill on immigration aims to ease restrictions on skilled foreigners coming to South Africa Khadija Magardie The new draft Immigration Bill looks geared to promote economic development by easing restrictions on monied and skilled would-be immigrants. Its predecessor, the White Paper on International Migration, focused largely on controlling the influx of illegal, generally […]
Khadija Magardie The new draft Bill on immigration could exacerbate the already high levels of xenophobia in South Africa. The Bill lists “the prevention and deterrence of xenophobia, at both government and community level” as one of its primary functions. But this is contradicted in its approach towards what it classifies as illegal foreigners. The […]
Chatsworth police station is the subject of a police internal investigation unit probe Paul Kirk Four policemen from Chatsworth, KwaZulu- Natal, appeared in the Durban Magistrate’s Court this week on charges of beating a destitute deaf mute man to death. The policemen, who remain on duty, allegedly bludgeoned Clive Michael with a variety of blunt […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT , Antananarivo | Friday 5.00pm. PLANES carrying 12 tons of aid from the UN’s World Food Programme took off on Friday for northeast Madagascar, as hundreds of thousands of people on the island suffered dire hardship after two cyclones. Two Antonov planes belonging to the Madagascan army, each carrying three tons of food, […]
Cameron Duodu LETTER FROM THE NORTH Television is a wonderful invention – it finds it hard to lie. So we have all been witnesses to the paltry efforts of the so-called “international community” to save the people of Mozambique from the incredible deluges of water that have threatened to drown thousands of them with every […]
show Alan Henry Although Formula One Holdings will require a professional management board when it is floated as a public company, the administration of grand prix racing has always responded to a powerful individual touch. These are some of the names that have been mentioned as possible members of the board. Luca di Montezemolo: The […]
Mail & Guardian reporter Mail & Guardian journalist Donna Block has won the inaugural Citadel Personal Finance Journalist of the Year award for the print media category. The awards are given in two categories: print and electronic media. The judges decided the quality of entries into the latter category did not justify naming a winner. […]
Barry Streek The allocation of medical graduates to one year of community service has helped to reduce the shortage of doctors and had a positive impact on the staffing of hospitals, according to Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. She said in reply to a question tabled in the National Council of Provinces by Phillipus Nel […]
THE health of former Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba, 97, who has been in hospital since Sunday, is improving, officials said. Bourguiba, who led Tunisia’s independence struggle and ruled the North African state for 30 years, is in hospital with an acute inflammation of the respiratory system.
Mail & Guardian reporter Surging oil prices – which may push the cost of petrol to more than R3 a litre by April – have come as an overdue reminder to industrialised countries of just how dependent their economies still are on a single source of energy. And, more to the point, how little they […]
Greg Bowes PREVIEW OFTHEWEEK As if the banging breakbeats of Cut La Roc and Aphrodite weren’t enough, this month you can catch a staggering assortment of international DJs at two not-to-be-missed Gauteng events. The first of these is the Select party at Carfax on Friday March 10. Backed by the French Institute, this is the […]
A new initiative is reviving the creations of a poet and artist whose work ranks among the best from South Africa Michael Gardiner ‘I don’t want to become a campus guru.” This in response to my request to Wopko Jensma for permission to photocopy his poems for my students, necessary because his published work had […]
Ivor Powell Shareholder agreements for the consortium that the South African Telecommunications Authority (Satra) has recommended for the third cellular license could make a mockery of the bid’s claims to promote black empowerment. Analysis of the agreements and founding documentation submitted by the Cell C consortium in support of its bid shows that the bid’s […]
AMAGLUG-GLUG face the Black Meteors in an Olympic qualifier this weekend without defender Aaron Mokoena, midfielder Quinton Fortune and strikers Benni McCarthy and Siyabonga Nomvete after a domestic ruling barring senior national team players from the squad. The under-23 side is trailing in Group B with Cameroon leading 1992 bronze medalists Ghana and South Africa […]
Khadija Magardie The leading United States television news network, ABC, has drafted advertisements for the South African press seeking patients who were part of Dr Werner Bezwoda’s discredited clinical trials into breast cancer treatment. The advert calls on women who were part of Bezwoda’s breast cancer trials at Johannesburg hospital to come forward to tell […]