Staff Reporter

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Rail parastatal denies it will sell sidings to neighbouring farmers Mike Loewe Transnet has renounced plans to sell off many of its Eastern Cape railway sidings after the Mail & Guardian last week exposed how the sale could leave homeless hundreds of evicted farm workers living on the sidings. After several calls and a meeting […]

Caroline Sullivan NOT CD OFTHEWEEK Tom Jones has spun out his “comeback”, which began with a gut-busting version of It’s Not Unusual on Jonathan Ross’s trendy Last Resort show in early 1987, for years, but has never quite overcome the novelty- oldster tag. People half his age flock to see him at Glastonbury, other artists […]

Greek South African comedian Irene Stephanou reminisces about growing up in a caf Usually, having a caf on the corner meant having a relationship with the family on the corner. Well, that’s what it felt like. Every day, including Sunday, every night, there you were behind the counter. Saturday afternoons were my worst – hot […]

Howard Barrell Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel played the ball deep into the private sector’s court with his budget speech on Wednesday. He showed that he had succeeded in getting the public finances into their best shape in decades and in creating an outstanding environment for business to take the economic lead, to invest for […]

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 […]

Deon Potgieter BOXING When Musibulele “Hawk” Makepula was awarded the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) junior flyweight world title on Saturday night it was not a controversial decision, but a bad one. Although the likeable Makepula has the potential of developing into a bona fide superstar, he still has much to learn. Watching the bout at […]

Jubie Matlou The Department of Home Affairs has instructed a Cape Town woman to have her sex certified by a district surgeon after her complaint that the department arbitrarily changed her gender on her identity document. The apparent mishap occurred when Georgia Kinghorn lodged her application for an identification document nine years ago. She only […]

For the third year in a row, Trevor Manuel has produced a largely acclaimed budget. What does it mean for individual South Africans? Belinda Beresford The big news of the budget was the restructuring of personal income taxes, and the consequent slashed tax bill for most taxpayers. More measures to encourage savings might have been […]

Windows 2000 has hit the shelves, and many computer users will be wondering whether the time has come to upgrade. Before you dash out to spend a fortune on the latest code from Redmond, however, pause to consider whether Bill Gates’s latest offering is really for you. Firstly, the hype around this release has largely […]

ALTHOUGH Queen “Iyaya” Sesoka, lead vocalist of popular Kwaito group Abashante, is still missing after disappearing on Tuesday, police say while they are aware of it, no missing person’s case has been reported. The 25-year-old singer’s disappearance took a strange turn on Friday when the Sowetan newspaper reported that a caller claiming he was in […]

Avoid the hassles of the road and go to Cape Town by rail Angus Begg I have a friend living near Johannesburg who booked on the Trans-Karoo’s new luxury version – Premier Classe – for a journey to Cape Town. Her search for the promised “Africa of a bygone era” took some work. Her difficulty […]

Donna Block The co-founder of New Africa Investments Limited (Nail), Jonty Sandler, tried to claw his way back from the business wilderness this week, appealing to shareholders in full-page advertisements to block Nail’s long-awaited restructuring. The disgraced former executive resigned his post last year after it emerged that Sandler and three other directors had hatched […]

Barry Streek The country’s poor have been the main beneficiaries of the government’s social spending, which has between 1993 and 1997 increased by an estimated 34%. This was revealed by Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel in this week’s budget speech in Parliament, where he emphasised this “significant shift in social spending from the more affluent […]

Peter Dickson In a move the police have codenamed Operation Beetle, a squad of 200 armed public order officers has been deployed to Uitenhage to keep the peace after car-maker Volkswagen’s sacking of 1E300 factory workers. Police hope Operation Beetle will prevent further incidents of post-strike intimidation that has already resulted in the hospitalisation of […]

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 […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Bombay | Friday 2.00pm. INDIA are 75/5 at stumps of the second day of the first Test against India at the Wankhele Stadium after a day which saw 15 wickets go down. South Africa were bundled out for 176 runs, but bounced back to decimate the Indian batting with some fine bowling. India […]

Barry Streek The Pan South African Language Board has accused state railway company Spoornet of acting unconstitutionally and unlawfully in banning the use of Afrikaans in the work place. In an unprecedented ruling, the board, which was appointed under the 1994 Constitution, says no institution is “allowed to restrict the use of a language between […]

Hazel Southam In a British survey last year, almost one million children claimed to have been “upset” by something they had found on the Internet. Forty per cent said that they had found something “rude”. Another poll showed that 56% of British Internet users are concerned about pornography and 75% will not let their children […]

A system of mutual aid supports the Congolese community in South Africa Evariste Katanga It’s the first day of January; the transition to a new millennium has taken just one second. The joy that erupts all around the world is the same joy experienced at the Hillbrow night club Chez Ntemba. The majority of its […]

David Beresford ANOTHER COUNTRY It was at 6.30am that Barney awoke, to the cock-o-doodle-doo of a hahdedah playing silly-buggers in the garden. He stifled the impulse to hurl the Tea’sMade out the window. To cure him of the habit Leonora the maid had attached a rubber band. The last time he had done himself a […]

THE government plans to increase the health budget by R2,39-billion to a total of R32,32-billion for the next year, Manuel announced in his Budget. This represents growth of 6,6 percent. More than 90% of national health spending is made up of transfers to the provinces; these transfers are expected to grow from R5,4-billion in 1999/2000 […]

AN EgyptAir airliner slid off the runway while landing at Harare airport on Wednesday, injuring some of the 86 passengers aboard. They said the Boeing 767 had skidded into sand as it landed in heavy rain in the early hours. The incident is the latest in a string of misfortunes to hit the airline. An […]