Staff Reporter

FOREIGN Affairs Director-General Jackie Selebi is tipped to become South Africa’s new police chief when Police Commissioner George Fivaz’s contract expires early next year. Cabinet agreed on Wednesday to reshuffle several director-generals in the criminal justice and security sectors, the Business Day reports. Sources told the newspaper the reshuffle has been prompted by the need […]

ENGLAND confirmed their place in the quarter-final play-offs of the World Cup on Friday, scoring 13 tries in a 101-10 procession against Tonga at Twickenham. England were given a helping hand when Tonga’s prop Ngalu Taufo’ou was sent off three minutes before half-time for flooring Richard Hill. Clive Woodward’s side were already in control at […]

IN his first season after leaving the Wanderers, 23-year-old Neil McKenzie scored a career best 166 not out (321 balls, 19×4, 3×6) as the Northerns Titans had McKenzie’s old team on the rack after the first day of their four day Supersport Series match at Centurion Park on Thursday. Together with Gerald Dros (94), McKenzie […]

Paul Kirk In a little over a week Transparency International will publish its Corruption Perceptions Index for the fourth time. This is an international barometer of how corrupt countries are perceived to be by business. South Africa is fairly high on the list – a sign that business perceives it to be relatively free of […]

Shaun Harris TAKING STOCK Pensions are an important and sensitive issue. A working person has a vision of what their financial position will be after they retire, and all too often that vision does not match up to reality when they reach retirement age. Retirement statistics in South Africa are depressing. For example, it’s estimated […]

precedent Stefaans Brmmer The Pretoria High Court decision this week to scrap six charges against apartheid’s “Dr Death”, Wouter Basson, may set a legal precedent allowing similar killers to walk free. The court ruled Basson cannot be prosecuted for poison murders committed abroad. One of the first judicial casualties may be efforts by the National […]

PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki will on Monday deliver a eulogy for former Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere at a memorial service in Pretoria’s Catholic Cathedral, the president’s office said. He and a high-powered South African delegation would also attend Nyerere’s state funeral in Tanzania’s national stadium in Dar-Es-Salaam on Thursday, presidential aide Parks Mankahlana said. Mankahlana was […]

The Yfm studio is hosting the cream of South African ragga. Charl Blignaut talks to two MCs who have become DJs It’s a curious scene, no matter how far from a police state we might have come. It’s a sunny Wednesday afternoon in a patently leafy Johannesburg suburb and we’re outside a building called the […]

Q & A Mpho Mutula, 22, co-presents South Africa’s first youth sex talk show, Jika Jika, on SABC 1, with Pule Hlatshwayo. Mutula, who grew up in Soweto, studied environmental health at the Pretoria Technikon. She has worked as an environmental coordinator and presented the late-night music show, Channel O. What is Jika Jika’s aim? […]

Shaun de Waal Movie of the week If you haven’t yet tired of movies populated by American teenagers of varying degrees of sophistication, you will find writer- director Alexander Payne’s Election a superbly sardonic entertainment. It is a satire about democracy. How odd that sounds: who would want to satirise democracy? But democracy does not […]

IVORY Coast player Max Brito, paralysed four years ago in the match against Tonga in South Africa and who now lives in south-west France, is to be guest of honour at the World Cup final next month in Cardiff. There had been speculation that Brito, still confined to a wheel chair, had been snubbed by […]

Andy Colquhoun Rugby World Cup Once again the eager Springboks have been robbed of the reassuring sight of the Cary Grant of the South African game riding down the hill and into town. Sheriff Nick Mallett’s huge sigh of relief has been replaced by a tight- lipped grimace. Henry Honiball has again withdrawn at the […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Product: Psion Revo (32-bit ARM 710 Risc chip running at 36MHz, backed by 8MB of ROM and 8MB of RAM) Price: R3 500 estimated Psion, the British manufacturer of palmtop computers, this week unveiled the Revo, a smaller, cheaper version of its Series 5mx handheld. Even for a seasoned Psion user, […]

be over Telford Vice Cricket Not another bloody perfect day, we might have thought, as we sank almost without trace into the cane chairs scattered around the pool bar at Nairobi’s Stanley Hotel. Except that the sky over South African cricket was far from an uncluttered Kenyan blue, despite the triumphant holding aloft of the […]

SARAH BULLEN, Cape Town | Thursday 4.55pm THE Johannesburg Stock Exchange again began and ended the day softer on Thursday, yet again taking its cue from United States markets where Wall Street notched up a second day of sharp losses. At close of trade the all share index had dipped 1,07%, lifting before lunch before […]

The legal claims of 3 000 South Africans against a UK-based asbestos company are spotlighting the issue of multinational companies’ accountability for activities in developing countries, writes Richard Meeran The United Kingdom Court of Appeal has acceded to Cape Public Limited Corporation’s requests to halt the claims of 3 000 South African asbestos victims of […]

Peter Dickson A race war has erupted in the Eastern Cape town of Jeffreys Bay, after its mayor decided he did not want Nelson Mandela’s face in his office. Mayor Pierre van Wyk’s inauguration ceremony was boycotted by African National Congress councillors last week after he removed photos of Nelson Mandela, Eastern Cape Premier Makhenkesi […]

Dramatic Encounters series supervising producer Mickey Madoda Dube takes umbrage at Andrew Worsdale’s negative review I was greatly disappointed in Andrew Worsdale’s review of Dramatic Encounters on September 10. Far from professional, it was more about what Andrew would have wanted to see than what the films actually presented. Surely a professional reviewer should look […]

WITH neither able to take the initiative, Griqualand West and Eastern Province ended the first day of their Supersport Series match at St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth on Thursday all square. By close of play, Griquas had reached 282 for seven after a solid 76 from Piet Barnard and a risky 57 from Loots […]

Dave Hill BODY LANGUAGE Sorry to bring this up, but I think I’ve got a problem with mating. The thing is, since taking up with my partner five years ago, she is the only female I’ve managed to impregnate. True, I’ve done it twice, but if I’m to maximise my chances of generating offspring that […]

A new plan has been designed to deal with the problems that have rendered South Africa’s taxi industry uncontrollable. Scotch Tagwireyi reports As taxi violence and road deaths reach epidemic proportions, the government is preparing sweeping plans to revamp South Africa’s deadliest industry. The plan includes taking the country’s present fleet of 120 000 minibus […]

Alex Dodd In a massive departure from Eighties- style puritanism, the Nineties, or rather millennial, means of art promotion is all about unabashed mutual co-operation between the arts and business: you scratch my back, I’ll decorate your boardroom. Hardly new really. Caravaggio was having it off with the Catholic bishops in exchange for oil paints […]

GAUTENG found themselves staring down the barrel of their first defeat of the 1999/200 season after the second day of their four-day Supersport Series match against the Northerns Titans at Centurion Park on Friday. By the close, Gauteng were still 35 runs short of the follow-on target of 247 after the Titans had laid down […]

Wally Mbhele and Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The commissioner of correctional services, Khulekani Sitole, is embroiled in a new scandal following accusations that he has used more than R1,2-million of the department’s money to fund a lucrative scholarship he named after himself. The Department of Correctional Services says it has already spent R1-million of the […]

John Matshikiza CROSSFIRE The passion for revising our history in line with what we still tiresomely call our “new dispensation” is getting out of hand. It’s one thing to say that history must be rewritten to show what really happened in the course of our various national sagas. It’s quite another thing to try to […]

Scriptwriter and creator of sci-fi TV series First Wave, Chris Brancato, tells Katy Bauer how to hurtle across Hollywood potholes without getting whiplash or becoming a jerk Writers? They’re a pain in the arse. They hover between chronic insecurity, bar- room brawls and delusions of grandeur. Hardly surprising really. The vast majority do exist in […]

FIVE of the 13 people arrested in connection with the murder earlier this year of United Democratic Movement national secretary Sifiso Nkabinde appeared in the Pietermaritzburg Regional Court on Thursday. SABC radio news reported Simphiwe Walter Dlamini, Phetheni Mkhize and Bongani Ndlovu, who were charged with defeating or obstructing murder investigations by giving false statements, […]

models? Tom Lodge A SECOND LOOK Before considering any changes to the existing electoral system it may be useful to recall its virtues. National list proportional representation is just about the simplest way to translate voters’ preferences into equitable representation. It benefits small parties, even very small ones, by allowing them a voice in law-making […]

Khadija Magardie The South African National Defence Force’s (SANDF) skewed policy on HIV/Aids has once again come under the spotlight, after an HIV-positive soldier in Durban sought legal assistance after threats to discontinue his anti-retroviral therapy. Following a letter from the soldier’s lawyer, the SANDF backed down, stating that it would continue treating patients already […]

Mail & Guardian reporter A brother-in-law of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is under investigation after he allegedly sexually assaulted a teenage girl at his home in Ottawa, Canada, last week. Police were called to the home of Simbarashe Reward Marufu, a second-ranking diplomat at the Zimbabwean high commission in Canada, on October 5. They summoned […]

WHAT few spectators there were at St Georges Park on Friday, will probably prefer a day at home on Saturday. On a day when the bat had it all too easy against the ball, Eastern Province and Griqualand West will either need a minor miracle or a sporting gesture from either captain to eke out […]

Paul Kirk Jonty Sandler, one of South Africa’s most high-profile businessmen, could inexplicably not be found when police attempted to execute a warrant for his arrest for alleged rape, and he remains a free man a month later. “The warrant should have been executed. If someone is to be arrested then he must be arrested […]