Staff Reporter

Jack Schofield Short film and TV-style websites like to use “streaming media”, which means the movie starts within 20 to 30 seconds of clicking the icon or hot-link to display it. The advantage is that you can start watching a video without having to download the whole thing, which could take from 10 to 20 […]

Howard Barrell Human Rights Commission chair Barney Pityana co-authored a newspaper article three years ago in which he effectively prejudged the central issue into which he has now called a commission of inquiry – whether there is racism in the South African media. The terms of reference of the Human Rights Commission’s controversial inquiry ask […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Young travellers are becoming increasingly adventurous and travelling to more far- flung destinations, with many looking for the experiences highlighted in Alex Garland’s novel The Beach. Reasearch commissioned to tie in with the release of the film The Beach shows that 20- to 30-year-olds believe that independent travel is an essential […]

Thebe Mabanga IN YOUR EAR Surviving the weekend on South African radio is a pleasant but sometimes frustrating act. In search of something entertaining to listen to, one can sometimes find oneself listening to astrology on a Saturday night or receiving soccer commentary in a very entertaining but incomprehensible language. Here then is a guide […]

THE SA Revenue Service plans to recruit about 100 additional full-timeauditors and about 30 forensic auditors in the coming months in order to deliver on its undertaking to collect R210,4billion in taxes in 2000-2001. Business Day reports that this would be 7,2% higher than this year’s achievement. It reports that SARS commissioner Pravin Gordhan said […]

The Human Rights Commission says that it served subpoenas on newspaper editors, including the editor of the Mail & Guardian, Phillip van Niekerk, because it believed this was the only way of ensuring their attendance at the hearings. The Mail & Guardian never refused to attend. What we did do was seek to establish the […]

Peter Dickson More than 17 000 Bisho government employees are so indebted to loan sharks that they are only being paid 25% of their salaries in the Eastern Cape provincial education and health departments. Eastern Cape MEC for Education Stone Sizani revealed at a press conference this week that at least 1 000 government employees […]

Fifty years ago, the author of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four was newly wed … and dying. DJTaylor traces George Orwell’s final weeks In January 1950, a small procession of visitors could be seen each afternoon making their way singly and severally through the cheerless north Bloomsbury squares towards University College Hospital (UCH). Many of […]

Howard Barrell The Democratic Party has thrown its weight behind one of its MPs, Richard Pillay, who has been denied security clearance to serve on Parliament’s watchdog committee on intelligence, calling his exclusion unjustified and malicious. Pillay is a former member of the African National Congress who alleges he was tortured by ANC security personnel […]

Investors always make the most noise about the latest budget. What will they be saying about this one? Belinda Beresford and David Le Page Was this an investor’s budget? Analysts are likely to be chewing over the reams of documentation provided by the Department of Finance for some time, trying to answer this question. Adults […]

EGYPTIAN President Hosni Mubarak welcomed Pope John Paul II to Egypt on Thursday with a call for a joint battle against fanaticism and hatred in order to fulfill the hopes of the new millennium. “We should oppose all forms of discrimination, injustice and double standards if we are to establish a new viable world order,” […]

David Le Page No matter how long you’ve been laying the groundwork for your retirement, there’s always a risk that the government will charge in and deliberately or inadvertently stomp all over it. Fortunately, that’s unlikely to be the case with the budget for fiscal 2000. It does, however, introduce a number of measures which […]

Charles Mangwiro and Justin Arenstein The Mozambican government appears to own 20% of the plastic pipe factory outside Maputo where police last week pulled off Africa’s largest ever Mandrax bust. The raid by a squad of South African and Mozambican police netted over 300kg of methaqualone power meant for the manufacture of at least 30-million […]

Mark Milner It was in use before a written language was invented. Today it is being studied as a possible means of staving off ailments ranging from bowel cancer to gallstones. It has been used to provide heating and lighting for centuries. Even the trendiest of today’s celebrity chefs does not disdain to slosh it […]

New tax concessions to non-profit organisations are close to tax deductibility for all donations Barry Streek The non-profit sector achieved a significant – although still incomplete – victory in this year’s budget with the announcement of tax concessions to non- profit organisations by Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel in his budget speech. His announcement stopped […]

THE government has decided to retain the current asset swap dispensation, but to change the definition of the 15% limit from total assets employed in South Africa, to 15% of total assets. Unit trusts would be permitted to invest up to 20% of their total assets under management by way of asset swaps. Pension funds, […]

Charlene Smith Crime killed the corner caf. And made us part of global mediocrity. As a real caf society develops, and we all sit on pavements delicately sipping caffe lattes and double mochas, the corner Greek, the owner of the local “kaif”, has packed up and gone back to Mykonos or is now managing one […]

Neil Manthorp CRICKET The only surprise the South African players have encountered in India so far has been just how predictable everything has been. Knowing what to expect is one thing, but you still expect some surprises in the land of people, chaos, enthusiasm and people. And more people. Preparations for the first Test, which […]

Barry Streek Sport, welfare, arts, culture and environmental sectors, represented by NGOs, have launched an umbrella body, the Peoples’ National Lottery Coalition (PNLC), to monitor the allocation of the proceeds from South Africa’s national lottery, which is due to be launched on March 1. The PNLC intends to engage with the government “in a proposed […]

Khadija Magardie Dr Werner Bezwoda, South Africa’s top chemotherapy expert who has admitted to faking groundbreaking breast cancer trials, conducted his experiments on more than 100 indigent black women without their formal consent. Bezwoda made his bombshell admission this month after investigators from the United States flew to South Africa to verify his research, which […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Abuja | Friday 3.35pm NIGERIAN President Olusegun Obasanjo has spoken out for the first time against legal implementation of Sharia, stating that punishments meted out under the Islamic law violates the constitution. “For any law to be, it must be codified. Sharia is not codified. They just make references to the Koran and […]

Scotch Tagwireyi and Heather Hogan The University of the Orange Free State (UOFS) has reintroduced apartheid-style rules in its male residences, by endorsing student demands to divide them according to race. The extraordinary decision followed several incidents of violence on campus, which were attributed to racial tensions between students. The problems mostly occurred in under-graduate […]

Many go on to earn hundreds of thousands a week, but Fifa wants to halt the exodus of ‘under-age’ African players – a move that would not be popular with the players’ moms Brian Oliver Somewhere in northern Malaysia there are 12 teenaged footballers living in one large room and hoping to be selected to […]

Donna Block SHAREWORLD I remember my first year at University and my first class, Finance 101. The professor, a wizened old curmudgeon, told us that if we learned nothing else in his class, rule one about finance was that the stock market was a crap-shoot. “You place your bets and you take your chances.” He […]

Shirley Kossick THE CAMBRIDGE GUIDE TO WOMEN’S WRITING IN ENGLISH edited by Lorna Sage (Cambridge University Press) The material in this guide consists of over 2 500 entries – from a 300-strong panel of contributors – simply set out in alphabetical order under each author’s name. Key titles (such as Jane Eyre, To the Lighthouse […]

CONTROVERSY over the radical revamp of New Africa Investments Limited took a new twist on Wednesday when co-founder Jonty Sandler denounced the group’s planned restructuring. In a full page advertisement in South Africa’s leading business daily, Sandler said the unbundling of Nail, which has been held up as a model of black advancement, will undermine […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni One of South Africa’s most prominent liberal voices, Sheena Duncan, has resigned from the Human Rights Commission Trust in protest at the inquiry into racism in the media. Duncan, a stalwart human rights activist, was attached to the Human Rights Commission’s (HRC) fundraising wing. She says she has been dismayed by […]

Movies via the Net could do more than hit your local video hire shop Jack Schofield Cliff Stanford has made one fortune by bringing the Internet to the mass market, through Demon Internet, and now he’d like to make another by using the Net to deliver movies. This week, Britain’s Redbus Film Group, of which […]

Polly Pattullo Visitors look at new places with eyes that are loaded with their perceptions about the world and where they come from. Depending on the “view”, we can be fascinated, bored or anguished. It can be unforgettable or mundane. Our hosts, who look at that same view every day, see things differently. Such confusion […]

Marianne Merten The New National Party aborted its disciplinary action against its outspoken senior Western Cape member Peter Marais this week after his legal team indicated it would cross-examine the party’s national and Western Cape leaders at the hearing. Marais was axed as Western Cape welfare and poverty relief MEC on Valentine’s Day, apparently for […]

Sasha Sanders I like the Seven Elevens. I really do. I like that I can walk up the road and buy milk or chocolates in the middle of the night. I like that I can buy a drinking yoghurt on my way to work early in the morning. And I like that they bake really […]

PARLIAMENTARIANS on Tuesday rained praise on former president Nelson Mandela at a special debate on his release from apartheid jails a decade ago and proposed that his bust be erected in the legislature. The proposal was mooted by ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni and supported by opposition politicians, who voiced as much admiration for Mandela […]