Staff Reporter

Composer Phillip Miller finds his music on the township streets, writes Alex Dodd Press play. Slowly the room is filled with spirits and memories. Geographies shift: now an empty Johannesburg, now a misty Warsaw. Here an empty leather suitcase, there a red silk dressing gown left on a chair. A violin stretches heavenwards thinly, sadly, […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni A Mpumalanga local council does not have a telephone line despite applying for one two years ago. Patrick Aphane, a councillor at the Moutse Transitional Local Council, says he believes the delays are due to lack of commitment by Telkom staff. “At various summits, Telkom officials gave us the impression that […]

Planned public hearings into the Department of Welfare’s re-registration drive for grant beneficiaries have been called off. Peter Dickson reports Human rights campaigners in the Eastern Cape are up in arms over a decision by two provincial legislature committees on Tuesday to deny the disabled a voice by calling off planned public hearings into the […]

EGYPTIAN leaders are furious at suggestions a co-pilot intentionally crashed Flight 990 in a suicide plunge and are struggling to keep the affair from escalating into a diplomatic wrangle with Washington. The affair threatened to widen into a rift between Muslims and the West as Egyptians voiced anger at “culturally ignorant” US officials who hinted […]

That engaging soul, Denis Beckett, is back in our living rooms. A new and very welcome season of Beckett’s Trek (SABC3, 21:30) began last week Thursday, its first programme having Denis traipsing around Tanzania in a somewhat disheartening bid to make sense of a country still crushed under the late Julius Nyerere’s socialist dreamplan. After […]

This newspaper has long exercised severe scepticism around the promises and threats of politicians and law enforcement officers to “get tough on crime”, to “wage war on crime” or, in Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete’s memorable phrase, to “kick the criminals in the stomach”. Our demand, and we believe the demand of the […]

Mail & Guardian reporter The Council on Higher Education is a powerful and broadly based body advising the minister on every facet of the sector. The council was established under the provisions of the Higher Education Act of 1997, and the first council was appointed in June 1998 with Professor Wiseman Nkhulu as chair. It […]

EDITOR of the Durban-based Daily News Kaizer Nyatsumba is suing a security company for R1-million after security guards allegedy assaulted him at Gauteng’s Eastgate shopping centre on Thursday. The guards who work for Baron Security apparently accused Nyatsumba of stealing an old Ford and abandoning it in the parking area. The guards allegedly tried to […]

Not quite movie of the week It’s that old adultery theme again. It has become as much of a clich and a formula as most of the rest of Hollywood’s stock-in- trade, predictably playing out the conflict between the demands of family and the lure of freedom (or just excitement). And, as if influenced by […]

Dylan Evans ALMOST LIKE A WHALE: THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES UPDATED by Steve Jones (Doubleday) Steve Jones, the lovable professor of genetics at University College, London, has re-written On the Origin of Species. His new book, Almost Like a Whale, has the same format as Darwin’s great work, right down to the chapter titles and […]

Wally Mbhele and Paul Kirk A senior National Intelligence Agency (NIA) official was arrested on Monday in Durban for the alleged rape of a Department of Foreign Affairs official. Both were assigned duties at the high-powered Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM). The matter was kept under wraps as government officials believed it would “embarrass” […]

Stefaans Brmmer South African and Italian police documents in the Mail &Guardian’s possession reveal shocking details of “mafia kingpin” Vito Palazzolo’s chequered career. Palazzolo, arrested last week for “lying” in his 1994 South African citizenship application, has been branded one of seven top Sicilian mafia leaders worldwide by the United States FBI. He is wanted […]

MORE than 2500 people employed by chiefs in the Northern Provicne have been on strike for 18 days, demanding to become public servants, but the provincial administration is not budging. The strikers are members of the Trade Union of South African Authorities(Tusaa), represented in 780 tribal authorities. They are demanding to be registered as public […]

ANGLO-Dutch oil giant Shell has declared another force majeure in Nigeria, the seventh in recent months due to unrest in the Niger Delta region, a company official said Thursday. In recent months, amid ethnic clashes in which dozens of people have died, the company has suffered operational stoppages that have forced it to declare force […]

SOUTH Africa A captain Dale Benkenstein won the toss and elected to bat first against Sri Lanka A in their second four-day tour match at the Oval in Pietermaritzburg on Thursday. Teams: South Africa A: Mark Bruyns, Doug Watson, Dale Benkenstein (capt), Ashwell Prince, Arno Jacobs, Pieter Strydom, Justin Kemp, Wendell Bossenger, Shafiek Abrahams, Mornantau […]

POLICE, soldiers and traffic officials impounded more than 60 minibus taxis in Umtata in a five-day joint operation which ended on Wednesday, police said. Commander of the public order police unit, Senior Superintendent Wayne Hackart said the operation targeted all five taxi ranks in the Umtata town centre following clashes between different taxi groups.

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 5.00pm. BLACK fast bowler Walter Masimula lined up for a combined provincial team against the touring England side in Centurion Thursday as a new race row hit South African cricket. There was an outcry when only white players were picked to represent a combined Gauteng and Northerns XI against […]

THE Democratic Party on Wednesday won two by-election seats from the National Party in the Eastern Cape. The party won by-elections Middelburg and Ward 5 in Port Elizabeth The DP won 55,2% of the vote in Middelburg and 86,2% in Port Elizabeth’s Ward 5.

THE Democractic Party on Wednesday demanded a meeting with visiting Chinese parliament chairman Li Peng over his country’s human rights record. DP spokesman Colin Eglin said in a statement the party wants to talk to Li about Chinese-occupied Tibet, the country’s crackdown on religious dissidents, as well as progress towards multi-party democracy. Li, China’s second […]

ANDREW MUCHINERIPI, Johannesburg | Thursday 6.30pm. SUNDOWNS increased their Castle Premiership lead to seven points with a 3-1 victory over Jomo Cosmos at Loftus Stadium while traditional rivals Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs faltered in midweek matches. Pirates drew 0-0 with Hellenic at Greenpoint Stadium in Cape Town while Chiefs slumped to a shock 2-1 […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 1.00pm. THE Tunisian club assault on Africa continues this weekend in Cote d’Ivoire when Club Africain play local side Africa Sports in the first leg of the Cup Winners Cup final. Etoile du Sahel built a one-goal advantage over Moroccan visitors Wydad Casablanca last weekend in the CAF Cup final […]

AN average of 1600 people are killed in road accidents in Tanzania each year, the Tanzania Roads Association said. The TARA chairman Immanuel Kimambo said on Wednesday that an estimated 6400 people have been killed in road accidents during the past four years. Most of the accidents occur due to human error, he said, and […]

PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki has been appointed as the first chairman of the Commonwealth. The new position was created by the organisation at the end of its heads of governemnt meeting in Durban on Monday. Mbeki will hold the position until the next Commonwealth meeting in 2001. Traditionally the head of state of the host nation […]

BRITAIN’S Lennox Lewis has been recognised as undisputed world heavyweight champion after the resolution of a cash row between his backers and the International Boxing Federation (IBF). “Thankfully, the lawyers representing us and the IBF have worked it out and Lennox is now recognised as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world,” Lewis’s manager Frank […]

THE Johannesburg Stock Exchange on Friday announced the launch of a wide-ranging review of its market structure and trading methods to secure its position in the face of mounting global competition. The JSE said that the review will look at the whole spectrum of the market, from trading hours and methods to a host of […]

FORMER president Nelson Mandela announced on Wednesday that the Heath special investigating unit would soon be restructured into a number of separate units. Speaking to journalists at his office in lower Houghton, Johannesburg, where he was visited by Judge Willem Heath, Mandela said the format of the restructuring would depend on discussions between Heath and […]

BRONWEN ROBERTS, Cape Town | Tuesday 8.15pm HEALTH Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang told Parliament on Tuesday that South Africa cannot afford to dispense the anti-AIDS drug AZT. Defending government’s much-criticised refusal to sanction the drug’s use to combat the spiralling epidemic, Tshabalala-Msimang said that it would cost government ten times the total health budget to administer […]

THE European Union said on Tuesday it has approved plans by Switzerland’s SAirGroup AG and South Africa’s Transnet to take joint control of South African Airways. SAirGroup, the parent of Swissair, in June bought a 20% stake in SAA for R1,4-billion. It has an option to acquire a further 10% in the South African airline, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday 9.50am. WITS University again failed to get a winner, recording their ninth draw in 15 matches when they were held to a goalless stalemate by SuperSport United in a Castle Premier League fixture at Milpark Stadium in Johannesburg on Tuesday night. The most disappointing aspect of the match will […]

ZAMBIA has increased the volume of its exports of non-traditional goods to Europe to a level now reaching more than $100-million, the Export Board of Zambia said on Monday. According to the EBZ, the European Union in general has become the largest market for Zambian non-traditional exports such as flowers, textiles, tobacco, coffee, cotton and […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday 3.45pm. JOMO Cosmos will be in the line of fire on Wednesday when they meet a rampant Sundowns squad fresh from their 3-1 hammering of Orlando Pirates in Saturday’s Rothmans Cup semifinal. Sundowns will undoubtedly be full of fight, and coach Paul Dolezar will be expecting the Brazilians to […]

UGANDAN President Yoweri Museveni told a Durban press conference on Monday that gays and lesbians in his country are free to follow their own sexual orientation as long as they do not “flaunt” it in public and disobey the law. Speaking after the close of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Museveni said homosexuals have […]