John Rawling : Boxing Evander Holyfield is demanding a staggering $25-million to be tempted back into the ring to face Lennox Lewis in a rematch this year. According to promoters, Lewis would be looking for a 50-50 split rather than the one-third he took on Saturday but the American television company which underwrites the deal […]
Gary Younge : BODY LANGUAGE Not for the first time the spirit of the United States Declaration of Independence and the rule of the American Constitution are at loggerheads. The founding fathers said everyone had the right to the “pursuit of happiness”. Now the state of Alabama has told women they have no “fundamental, constitutional […]
MEDICAL reports on the the three Americans awaiting trial in Zimbabwe for alleged espionage and terrorism show that they were not tortured during interrogation, state media reports. The state-controlled Herald newspaper quotes prisons medical officer Dr M Madhombiro and independent specialist surgeon AC Harid on Friday as agreeing in their reports that there was no […]
THE former Rwandan army major freed by a United Nations court on charges of murdering 10 Belgian peacekeepers during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide remained in custody on Friday as Belgium and Rwanda sought his re-arrest. The UN tribunal freed Bernard Ntuyahaga on Thursday when the prosecution dropped charges against him but Belgium wants him for trial […]
Nicci Gerrard TONGUE FIRST: ADVENTURES IN PHYSICAL CULTURE by Emily Jenkins (Virago) I think she is sitting on the floor of her bathroom on the front cover – at least that’s what it looks like. She is wrapped in a short towel so that the tops of her legs disappear into its mysterious shadows; her […]
John Campbell The idea that each individual owns and controls his or her property lies at the very foundation of most (perhaps, all) societies. However useful the concept is at an ideological level, it is a notion that is increasingly less appropriate to describe property rights as the 20th century advances into the 21st. One […]
The venue that hosted Codesa has been transformed into a gambling den. Bafana Khumalo reports The “miracle” of South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy was painfully hammered out at the World Trade Centre in 1993 after months of negotiation at the Congress for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa). Today, this hall of democracy has […]
AFRICAN National Congress stalwart Walter Sisulu was released from hospital on Friday after treatment for chest pains, high blood pressure and blood sugar problems.The 86-year-old Sisulu was admitted to hospital on Sunday for the the second time in a week amid growing concern for his health.A Morningside Clinic spokesperson said on Friday he is “doing […]
Michael Finch : Athletics If the double “MJ” show doesn’t pack out the Ruimsig stadium in Roodepoort tonight, then Athletics South Africa (ASA) is faced with a crisis. Just the mere presence of the fastest man and fastest woman on earth, Michael Johnson and Marion Jones, in the second of the three-leg Engen Grand Prix […]
Emeka Nwandiko There is something strange about the cars parked outside the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides building at Delta Park. Its occupants dressed in shirt and ties get out and look around furtively before they start walking. Some just sit in their flashy cars and wait. Equally strange are the large black capital letters […]
Ted Leggett The Gauteng police media liaison officers recently released a statement of support for a directive issued by National Commissioner George Fivaz earlier this year. This directive admonishes police officers to “refrain from making unauthorised and unguarded statements to the media”, and to direct press inquiries to media liaison. This kind of policy, Fivaz […]
Ben Laurance For a few fleeting moments last Friday, traders on the oil market apparently thought the worst might be over. Leaders of Opec, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, emerged from a meeting in the Hague to declare member states would be cutting oil production by two million barrels a day. The price of […]
Alex Dodd A wave of dissent has been rising this week in response to implications that Tim Modise’s appointment as SAfm’s prime time morning talk show host has been tokenistic. The news that Modise would be taking over from Will Bernard, host of Talk at Will, broke last week. At the time, even Bernard took […]
A caring organisation is finding homes for abandoned babies, writes Aaron Nicodemus Ten years ago, the maternity ward at Pietermaritzburg’s Edendale hospital was overflowing with abandoned babies. At one stage it was caring for 64 infants. They lived three or four to a crib and received barely adequate medical care. They were unwanted and unloved. […]
The Walkman is dead. Long live the Sony PlayStation, writes Faisal Islam Lara Croft’s newly released album on Sony Records is not available in the shops. Fans of the electronic games heroine turned virtual pop star will have to hook up their PlayStation to a Sony digital network and download directly to minidisc in seconds. […]
Bafana Khumalo Sergeant Sibusiso Gwala left his army base at Thabatshwane in Pretoria in August 1997 to rush to KwaZulu-Natal when he heard his father, African National Congress leader Harry Gwala, had died. “This was a blood relative and it was important for me to be there,” he explained this week, expressing bitterness that attending […]
INDABA, MY CHILDREN by Credo Mutwa (Payback Press) Payback Press, part of Scottish publisher Canongate, is devoted to new and old works by important black writers. Among the titles already published under this imprint is Chester Himes’s Harlem cycle of murder mysteries; two famous books on black music, Leroi Jones’s Blues People and Ben Sidran’s […]
Ferial Haffajee : TAKING STOCK >From the Top of Africa we look down on one of the continent’s largest cities. Johannesburg. At the top of the Carlton Centre (now called the Top of Africa), the city looks like a mini-land. Cars rush about on highways that criss-cross the city linking Sandton in the north with […]
Howard Barrell Unita rebels have taken delivery of new weapons which enable them to attack Angola’s offshore oil rigs and bombard the nation’s capital, Luanda, according to unconfirmed intelligence reports. The rebels now have three Russian-built MI 25 Hind helicopters, with another seven on delivery. They have also recently obtained more than 20 Russian-built unguided […]
Charlene Smith and Aaron Nicodemus The company that produced the controversial Aids drug Virodene has conducted more human trials without the approval of the Medicines Control Council (MCC), according to papers filed before the Pretoria High Court. In 1997 the MCC suspended human trials of the drug. The documents reveal that despite no apparent financial […]
The head of the TRC hopes to hold on to his post, despite his recent appointment as rector of the University of the North, writes Ann Eveleth Truth and Reconciliation Commission CEO Biki Minyuku is bidding to keep his current post after he takes on new responsibilities – and a R1-million salary package – as […]
SWAZILAND’s King Mswati III opened the two-day Southern African Development Community defence and security committee meeting on Thursday with the recommendation that the regional trading bloc establish a peacekeeping force. Addressing delegates from 14 SADC countries in the Swazi capital, Mbabane, Mswati said an impartial peacekeeping force would be the most effective way to promote […]
Mail & Guardian reporter Consider the scenario: a New York society wedding, and two Johannesburg-based guests, but only one regularly reads Smart Money & Technology. He’s expecting his round trip to New York to cost around R1 900. This will be less than half the price paid by his less well- informed friend, who did […]
Nicholas Lezard AN INSTANCE OF THE FINGERPOST by Iain Pears (Vintage) There is something about fat historical thrillers – in particular, those with pretensions – that can be uniquely dispiriting. They’re a kind of intellectual pornography, titillating us into an unwarranted sense of fulfilment. The more ambitious ones – like Umberto Eco’s The Name of […]
Mail & Guardian reporter The probability of senior African National Congress leaders testifying in mitigation of sentence for Allan Boesak next Tuesday are slim. When Boesak was accused of stealing from foreign donors and flew back to South Africa to stand trial, thousands of supporters turned out at the airport to cheer him. Minister of […]
David Shapshak Hydrogen, the world’s most plentiful substance, may be the energy source of future motor cars. With natural fuel resources diminishing, the need for alternative energy sources has been growing, and scientists have been looking for as efficient an option as petroleum. While part of the concern is environmental (fuel combustion engines damage the […]
all Africans John Matshikiza : WITH THE LID OFF The taxi driver is from Yugoslavia. He rails against the politicians and religious orthodoxies that have torn his country apart, but says he is now quite happy in South Africa. He drops me at the airport and wishes me a pleasant flight. My ticket says Air […]
Archaic and costly contracts governing the supply of timber to the South African market are being overhauled, writes Lael Bethlehem Over the past 100 years, the state has played a classic developmental role in industrial forestry by stepping in to avert market failure. It has done its job. Today there is a thriving private sector […]
Howard Barrell : OVER A BARREL Why believe economists or economic explanations? For economics takes creativity, greed, mood swings and fortune- telling, and pretends to combine them into a science. If, in this world, some things do indeed cause other things to happen, it is unusually difficult to say in the case of economics what […]
Wally Mbhele and Ferial Haffajee Jay Naidoo’s future as Minister of Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting hangs in the balance as tensions with his department’s officials have reached the deputy president’s office. With elections looming, the jockeying for Cabinet posts has begun and Naidoo could be an early casualty. There is a persistent rumour that Free […]
THE DAVID GLEASON COLUMN Believe me when I tell you that, for small businesspeople, the thing that counts most is the interest rate. I wrote about this last week, but it is such an important matter it needs to be addressed again. Interest rates determine how consumers behave; they set the pattern of spending. If […]
The education ministry has requested forensic audits into the financial affairs of six black universities, writes Evidence wa ka Ngobeni With black universities on the brink of collapse, the Ministry of Education has said that criminal charges will be laid against university managers if they are found to have abused taxpayers’ money. This follows Minister […]