Staff Reporter

Terry Pratchett, author of the humorous – and best-selling – Discworld fantasy series, tells Hamish Mackintosh about his computer habits When did you start using computers? In about 1982. I started with a Sinclair ZX81 which allowed me to do very primitive word processing. Next was an Amstrad CPC464 – the first model with an […]

Paul Kirk A week after Zulu chiefs met President Thabo Mbeki to ask for the proposed new changes in municipal demarcations to be put on hold, the King of the Pondos, Justice Mpondombini Sigcau, has called for “no changes” in the municipal demarcations in his area. Pondoland has seen exceptionally bloody faction fighting, and the […]

Marthali Brand It was to be the soap opera of operas in the capital of rugby, braaivleis en sonneskyn. And Madame Butterfly, at Loftus Versfeld “under summer skies”, lived up to all the hype. And Pretoria turned out with gusto – only a few unclaimed seats were to be found on the field. Even some […]

THE Eastern Cape farmer who was positively diagnosed with the deadly and contagious Congo Fever died on Thursday night. The 51-year-old farmer, Francois Retief of Murraysburg in the Karoo, was described as very fit but in Port Elizabeth’s Provincial Hospital. Health authorities quarantined anyone, especially relatives, who had contact with Retief and they are monitored […]

Melvyn Minnaar Lifestyle In a town like Franschhoek, where the tenuous Huguenot soul was sold out long ago to compliant Biggie Best tourism and big buck retirees, it’s easy enough to find a relaxing spot to sip an adequately-made hot-vineyard wine. To discover something a little more rewarding for body and spirit requires one to […]

Barry Streek Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana is to announce details of a major investigation into South Africa’s labour laws after President Thabo Mbeki’s opening speech to Parliament on Friday. The inquiry, to be conducted by legal experts, is unlikely to entail significant changes to the labour legislation adopted by Parliament since 1994. Its main […]

Jubie Matlou The African National Congress intends to kill the South African National Civics Organisation (Sanco) and take over civic politics as part of its drive to put its stamp on all levels of political life in South Africa. The ANC wants its branches to take up civic issues at local level in a bid […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kumasi | Thursday 12.20pm. AFTER Bafana Bafana 1-1 draw with Algeria on Wednesday night, coach Trott Molotto said his team “will go for the kill” against Ghana on Sunday. “You know we are already in the knockout stages. We are definitely going for the kill against the Black Stars,” Molotto said at a […]

Peter Dickson Eastern Cape sangoma and self-styled direct royal descendant and chief Nicholas Tilana Gcaleka, who hit world headlines four years ago with his British hunt for the head of 19th-century Xhosa King Hintsa, has taken legal action to retrieve the skull from the University of Cape Town (UCT). But the UCT forensic medicine department’s […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Liberian President Charles Taylor is suing the London Times for quoting a book accusing him of being a cannibal. The book, The Mask of Anarchy by Oxford- educated scholar Stephen Ellis, accuses Taylor of “indulging in human sacrifice and the ritualistic consumption of human body parts”. The Times article, which appeared […]

Luvuyo Kakaza Acclaimed actor and director John Kani, recently honoured by the Hiroshima Foundation in Sweden, this week shrugged off a challenge in letters to newspapers by actor Pieter-Dirk Uys to contribute his substantial prize to the cash- strapped Market Theatre, where he is artistic director. Uys said he was delighted that Kani had received […]

An ANCproposal to scrap parliamentary interpellations has caused a controversy, report Howard Barrell and Barry Streek The African National Congress is proposing radical changes to the rules governing question time in Parliament which will cause a major row with opposition parties. The ANC is suggesting that the number of questions to Cabinet members should be […]

CONTROVERSIAL number eight AJ Venter, still caught in contractual wrangles with the Cats that may end in court, has been included in the Sharks Super 12 team to play Border in a pre-season friendly on Saturday. Venter will scrum down with other loosies Wayne Fyvie (captaining the Sharks) and Charl van Rensburg. Justin Swart is […]

Andy CapostagnoGolf The local golf tour winds down this week with the Stenham Swazi Open, an amalgam of amateur and professional golf which, rather confusingly, will be held at the Wild Coast Sun, some 700km from Swaziland. The reason for the venue switch is that bane of greenkeepers’ lives, fungus. The greens at the Royal […]

M&G Mail & Guardian reporters Financial adviser Magnus Heystek has withdrawn his R2-million defamation action against the Mail & Guardian, and has agreed to pay the newspaper’s costs. Heystek withdrew from the case against the M&G this week as the newspaper went to court to compel him to disclose documents relating to the case. It […]

Donna Block SHARE WORLD There are days when I really miss the action on Wall Street, the rush that comes with the execution of a great trade and the hustle and bustle of trying to stay ahead of the market. Then, of course, there are the days when the wild volatility that is characteristic of […]

NINETEEN soldiers have been executed for sedition or acts of banditry in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the past week, judicial sources said on Thursday. Nine had been convicted and sentenced to death by a military court for murder and armed robbery and were executed in Kinshasa on Wednesday, court sources said. They included […]

Rupert Neethling “You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.” – The Borg, Star Trek: The Next Generation South Africans who want an Internet dial-up account or who wish to switch to a different Internet service provider (ISP) are discovering that as far as the major ISPs are concerned, they have few choices. Six months ago, […]

Edward Helmore The music industry used to refer to music as “product”, implying something tangible, but the time is near when music will be called “content” – intangible, and entirely apt for something that exists only as digital code on the Internet. In two steps, the two most risk-averse and bureaucratic of the big five […]

Peter Dickson A week after the government unveiled its controversial National Aids Council (NAC), Aids activists around South Africa have united online to form an alternative watchdog body, the Shadow National Aids Council (SNAC). “Every move, statement and omission will be monitored by SNAC,” outspoken Eastern Cape health official Dr Costa Gazi announced this week, […]

Angus Begg WEEKENDS FOR LOVERS by Bridget Hilton- Barber (Southern) ‘Stopovers are the one-night stands of travelling and an evening with Lord Fraser is one you won’t regret.” Far from an invitation to spend the night with an ageing, cross-dressing British Conservative Party politician who has fallen foul of the tabloids, this is Bridget Hilton-Barber’s […]

Shane Watson BODY LANGUAGE First there was Cindy, then there was Kate, now there’s Gisele. Gisele Bundchen, Brazilian model of the moment. Not just Vogue and American Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar and W, all of whom featured her on their January covers, but every kind of publication has taken to Gisele like a Carlsberg in […]

Khadija Magardie CROSSFIRE The lead article in the Mail & Guardian (January 28 to February 3) on “Africa’s new slaves” demonstrated a one-sided view of the civil war in Sudan. The three crucial flaws in the article were Cameron Duodu’s failure to probe the role of Christian Solidarity International (CSI) in the alleged “slave trade” […]

Mark Milner and Charlotte Denny Britain may be sceptical about the virtues of signing up for the euro but others, from Latin America to the Balkans, are falling over themselves to adopt someone else’s currency. Ecuador announced this week that it plans to replace the sucre with the dollar as the country’s legal tender. Australian […]

Five is now six in Europe’s premier rugby championship, and it’s not before time, writes Eddie Butler It’s all very new millennium, this expansion to Six Nations. But it has to be said: it’s about bloody time. By now we should be up to at least Seven. If Romania had been offered the hand of […]

Philippa Garson CLASS STRUGGLE The decision by Minister of Education Kader Asmal to appoint an independent panel of educationists to review Curriculum 2005 is welcome news indeed. After so much speculation, confusion and controversy about the new curriculum and its bumpy implementation, a cool, collected look by a group of people who do not have […]

NET WATCH During a recent Guardian debate over the commercialisation of the net, ntk.net’s editor Danny O’Brien complained that banner advertising was now taking longer to download than the actual content of most web pages. Users with local dial-up connections find this particularly frustrating, so finding a way to circumvent the bandwidth- eating ads could […]

The Mail & Guardian’s sister newspaper, The Guardian, is launching a campaign to bring education to the world’s millions of illiterate people. Victoria Brittain, Larry Elliot and John Carvel explain why it’s necessary Imagine that all children aged six to 14 in Europe and North America did not go to school. The figure is huge, […]

David Le Page TAKING STOCK As dot.coms scream up the graphs in the United States and Europe, it’s hard for local investors to ignore the lure of the information technology sector. Media stories about the Y2K problem have been replaced by predictions for likely IT developments in the next 20 or 30 years that would […]

Khadija Magardie The SABC has refused to accept last week’s judgment by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) which found the public broadcaster guilty of unfair reporting against Allister Sparks. The BCCSA has acknowledged that it has received an application for a review of its decision from the SABC. The directive which ordered […]

Telford Vice and Neil ManthorpCricket South Africa’s indifferent form during the current triangular series has lead to understandable criticism. Twice in four matches the top order has batted with an apparent desire to be back in the pavilion as soon as possible, and the bowling has been unreliable. When a team lose their best bowler, […]

John Matshikiza WHO ARE … THE HAINS? ‘Liberal” was a term that was often (and sometimes still is) regarded as a swear word on both sides of the South African political divide. Liberals were either thought of as being the ones who sat on the fence and held back the tide of revolution, or as […]