WL Webb If there is a reading posterity, there is no doubt about the place in it of Gnter Grass’s best work. With Gabriel Garca Mrquez and some of his contemporaries in Eastern Europe, Grass has surely been one of the great shapers of literary consciousness in the latter half of the 20th century. >From […]
PAUL KIRK, Johannesburg | Friday 1.30pm SOUTH Africa may be facing facing the worst outbreak of malaria since 1932 after carrier mosquitos lived through the long hot winter. Making the possibility of an epidemic more probable is the fact that the malaria parasite is now resistant to many of the drugs used to treat it. […]
Shaun Harris TAKING STOCK Buying property and the costs associated with a mortgage bond is a touchy subject. For many people buying a home is their biggest investment, and the process of securing home loan finance can be traumatic. When something goes wrong – sharp interest rate hikes, or personal financial circumstances forcing a homeowner […]
Marianne Merten Okiep, an almost forgotten bleak former mining town in the Northern Cape. Every afternoon, music pounds from the cement- floored community hall as dozens of youngsters learn dance and movement – anything from jazz to kwaito. It’s a lifeline for youngsters such as Ilse Carroll (18) living in this desolate town, where streets […]
Mungo Soggot The Office of the Public Protector, one of the state’s main watchdogs against corruption and maladministration, has had a limited impact since its inception after the 1994 election. It has not exposed any significant instance of impropriety, and has at times allowed itself to be sidetracked by investigations of questionable importance. The office […]
THE official driver of Public Service and Administration Minister of Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi was found guilty of negligent driving in the Johannesburg Magistrates Court on Wednesday. Constable Johan Gert van Sevenster, (27) was reversing a BMW out of a parking bay in Raleigh Street, Yeoville, when he collided into a minibus taxi on August 26 last […]
Aaron Nicodemus The string of deadly bus accidents recently has placed an international spotlight on the safety of South African buses. Over the past two weeks accidents have killed 79 people and injured more than 250. In the most recent accident on October 4, a bus full of worshippers on their way home to the […]
Richard Calland A coach careers off a road and down a bank. Thirty die. The brakes failed, claims the driver. Maybe they did. What if he knew they were faulty? What if he knew they might be faulty because he knew they were poorly maintained by a company that won the contract through kickbacks? What […]
The news that Dudley Moore has a form of Parkinson’s disease has focused fresh attention on the illness. Here David Beresford, a veteran South African correspondent and an associate editor of the Mail & Guardian, gives an extraordinary account of his battle with the disease – and how it has given him access to a […]
ITALIAN coach Massimo Mascioletti has made seven changes to his starting line-up for their Rugby World Cup pool B wooden-spoon battle against Tonga on Sunday. Former Bradford Bulls rugby league winger Nick Zisti makes way for Fabio Roselli, whose centre partner is Alessandro Ceppolino. In the back row, Carlo Caione comes in for Orazio Arancio […]
Destitution, soccer and violence are the themes of this year’s Young Directors’ Festival, writes Thebe Mabanga Picture this: three guys are employed as delivery truck attendants. They watch the world go by from the back of a Coca-Cola truck. Their favourite destination is the Sandton Health & Racquet Club, for here, while the yuppies are […]
Stephen Friedman WORM’S EYE VIEW Left-wing sects are not known for their sense of humour. So they may not find it amusing that much of their spirit now lives within liberals on Africa’s southern tip. Graduates of student politics in the 1970s will be familiar with the key features of left-wing sects. They include an […]
Mail & Guardian reporter The ninth International Anti-Corruption Conference (IAAC) starts in Durban this weekend, bringing together world leaders and experts in the fight against corruption. The conferences are facilitated by Transparency International, which co- hosts this year’s event with the Department of Justice. The IACC was created in 1983 as networking forum for international […]
Louisa Young BODY LANGUAGE Product placement has never had it so good. According to underwear manufacturers Hanro, the Egyptian cotton camisole worn by Nicole Kidman in a scene from the Stanley Kubrick epic Eyes Wide Shut has been a hit all over the world. As the film opens in each country, sales of the skimpy […]
IRELAND will be without two of their leading forwards, veteran prop Peter Clohessy and lock Jeremy Davidson, for Sunday’s World Cup match against Australia at Lansdowne Road on Sunday. Ireland coach Warren Gatland has decided not to risk the players, who have been carrying niggling back injuries following the 53-9 win over the USA in […]
Robert Kirby Channel Vision With the Rugby World Cup under way, it’s fairly certain where most television sets will be pointing these next six weeks. At this stage all that deserves comment is the lumbering opening ceremony of the tournament. Wales should hang its national head in shame – followed by the public lopping-off of […]
Former chief director of operations of the National Intelligence Service Maritz Spaarwater takes on a new role as researcher for the United Democratic Movement. Howard Barrell reports The apartheid superspook who set up the top-secret meetings with African National Congress leaders in Switzerland in 1989 that led to a negotiated settlement in South Africa has […]
the ANC’s shadow Ebrahim Harvey A SECOND LOOK The role of the South African Communist Party in the African National Congress- led alliance must rate as one of the most intriguing questions in the history of the South Africa liberation movement. There cannot be a harder act to follow. How is it that while proclaiming […]
corruption Where there is war, there is corruption, and in Southern Africa there are many conflicts. David Le Page reports on the SADC To find corruption in Southern Africa, first seek out war, tyranny and transition. These are the circumstances that create the space and opportunity for corruption, and among the 13 Southern African Development […]
FIVE people were killed and five seriously hurt outside Mount Ayliff in the northern Transkei on Thursday, in the second head-on collision in two days in the region involving a truck and a minibus taxi. Seven people were killed and nine hurt on the N2 between Umtata and Engcobo on Wednesday when a minibus taxi […]
Robert McBride’s long-awaited testimony on the Magoo’s bar bombing started this week. Paul Kirk reports This week Robert McBride kicked off his amnesty application with an almost poetic explanation of why he decided to embark on the armed struggle – and then listed more than 10 bombing incidents which apartheid- era security police never even […]
Robert Colman Township theatre groups strut their stuff at the eighth annual Zwakala Festival beginning on October 11 at the Market Theatre Laboratory. As an open platform for new ideas, Zwakala is a forerunner in airing the best proponents of the marginalised voice – giving township talent the space it deserves. The Market Theatre Laboratory […]
Luvuyo Kakaza In his two current one-act plays, Bheki Mkwana avoids dealing with politics, instead he delves into the personal and, ironically, ends up revealing a clear insight into a society torn-apart by political violence. Protest Theatre, Mkhwana says “underestimates our creativity. Every piece of work produced during the heyday of apartheid dealt with experiences […]
The Boer War taught the Afrikaner to stand on his own and sometimes do unspeakable things for the survival of the Volk. A hundred years later it is time for a more inclusive story, says Antjie Krog It is early October 1899. At a farmhouse people are laughing, dancing, having a party. On a kopje […]
A JOINT operation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police is believed to have arrested in Cape Town a number of suspects in in connection with last year’s blasts at US embassies in Nairobi and the Tanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam, which killed 116 people and injured 4 274 others. The Cape Times […]
Andy Capostagno in Edinburgh Rugby World Cup As it turns out we worried needlessly. A week into the fourth World Cup only England are sitting prettier than South Africa. Moreover, the Springboks got the kind of genuine workout against Scotland that no training camp can ever replicate: behind after an hour, convincing winners after 80 […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Prostitutes conduct their business on the pavement outside the school walls, kwaito music blares from flats next door competing with the constant hooting of taxis. A teacher, who has just been mugged outside the school, arrives with her clothing ripped by criminals who fled with her jewellery. This is St Enda’s […]
Stephen Gray Review of the week Well yes, it was a great pleasure on a day trip from Johannesburg last week to become a feverish festino at the second ever Aardklop National Arts Festival in leafy, springy, villagey Potchefstroom. To be part of not just one, but three, full houses for new shows ordinary people […]
David Le Page South African innovation has achieved global recognition once again – the Blaster flame-thrower car defence system of Charl Fourie and Michelle Wong has been awarded the annual Ig Nobel Peace Prize. Wong said this week that Blaster was honoured to have received the prize, but unfortunately did not have time to attend […]
UMTATA police are investigating what the ANC believes to be a string of politically motivated shootings and arson incidents at the Ngangelizwe homes of three prominent community activists. The men, Umtata deputy mayor Nobantu Madyibi, councillor and council land and legal committee chairman Thami Mayaba, and wheelchair-bound SACP executive member and ex-councillor Zeph Semane have […]
Donna Block Gold’s fortunes have risen like a phoenix out of the ashes as the price of the precious metal soared over $330 per ounce this week – a price that hasn’t been seen for two years. Bullion prices have risen dramatically since last week after 15 European central banks pledged to limit annual gold […]
The rise of powerful Indian gambling syndicates has led to some of the game’s biggest stars being ensnared in match- fixing claims. A special report by Jason Burke in Bombay, Denis Campbell and Kevin Mitchell The five men from Bombay sweated nervously as their plane passed over the Arabian Sea en route to Dubai. They […]