Staff Reporter

Do annual government budgets really matter? A great fuss invariably accompanies them and they attract a degree of examination which seems quite disproportionate for what they usually turn out to be. In fact, the annual budget is really little more than a household accounting of how much money will be needed to pay for the […]

Neil Manthorp in Christchurch Cricket Gary Kirsten’s contribution to South Africa’s seven-wicket win over New Zealand on Wednesday night would have been seen as routine two years ago but this time his 81 not out might prove to be a watershed. It just doesn’t matter how much you have played, and how much experience you […]

Globetrotting for his new book Eat the Rich, America’s favourite rightwing iconoclast found laughter in squalor and corruption everywhere. PJO’Rourke speaks to the Mail & Guardian Eat the Rich contrasts different economic systems around the world. What gave you the idea? I wanted to find out why some countries are so rich and others are […]

The failure of the law to address the problem of rape was highlighted by the Italian Court of Appeal last week. It overturned the conviction of a 45-year-old driving instructor found guilty of raping an 18-year- old pupil on the grounds that she could not have been raped as she was wearing jeans. The defendant […]

Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel’s budget has been labelled `boring’, but it augurs well for the future. Belinda Beresford and Donna Block report The government may be keen to flirt with voters before the election, but the latest budget showed an administration also keen to display a well-turned piece of economic discipline to international investors […]

Marianne Merten More than 200 people have heeded a Western Cape African National Congress call for members of the public to join the police reservists. Bright yellow posters calling for volunteers went up throughout Cape Town recently after the party pledged to National Commissioner George Fivaz that it would recruit 500 new volunteers by April […]

Andy Capostagno Rugby There is a theory which states that northern hemisphere rugby will only improve if it changes its playing season to coincide with that of the southern hemisphere. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. (This paragraph with apologies to Douglas Adams). For how else can we explain the […]

Ferial Haffajee These are some of the back-room budgeteers behind Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel’s budget this week: l Deputy Minister of Finance Gill Marcus: plucked from her role as the chair of Parliament’s standing committee on finance to serve as Manuel’s deputy, she has worked primarily to improve revenue collection. The changes at the […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Cheating and Australia. The two words are snug partners if we are talking cricket. But what about Australian university students cheating to get their degrees? On the Internet? Too right, mate. Most academics in Australia have had to deal with it to some degree, says Jenna Mead, senior lecturer in the […]

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a syndrome that affects the entire South African society. Aaron Nicodemus investigates After being raped by a gang of four police officers 10 years ago, Thandi Shezi (26) could not even look at a man without shaking. She jumped at loud noises and the smell of a man’s sweat made her […]

Emeka Nwandiko Black employees at Gauteng’s Department of Finance have rallied around a white colleague who was dismissed for making a racist remark, saying her sacking was “apartheid in reverse”. Bets Enslin was dismissed last Friday after she was brought before a disciplinary tribunal for an incident last December. It is alleged that Enslin jokingly […]

Bryan Rostron:A SECOND LOOK Once upon a time, in the bad old days, when I was a rookie reporter in Cape Town, a regular assignment was to greet the Union Castle as it docked, in order to ask some fading English celebrity or ageing actor on the last leg of a declining career, before he […]

Andrew Muchineripi Soccer National soccer coach Trott Moloto faces another no-win situation on Saturday in Gaborone where Botswana host Bafana Bafana in a Castle Cup Southern Africa championship first-round match. Given the lowly stature of the home team, who lie 133 places behind their opponents on the world rankings, Moloto will be expected to return […]

A SHORTLIST of companies which applied to purchase Connex Travel, the state-owned travel agency, is now finalised, Public Enterprises Minister Stella Sigcau said on Thursday. Sigcau expressed satisfaction with the applications, stating that there had been equal interest from both black empowerment groups and key companies in the industry. The selected companies are Magic Travel/Masane […]

In his last state-of-the-nation address at the opening of Parliament, President Nelson Mandela understandably spoke of the achievements of the first democratically elected government. Within this context, it is worthwhile examining the record of our new Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights, over the same period. After all, it was the rights contained in the […]

Mungo Soggot The company accused of paying a R1-million bribe for a Gauteng gambling licence, Tsogo Sun, is fighting a court order instructing the Mpumalanga gambling board to hand over tapes of deliberations which gave Tsogo a licence in Witbank. In a judgment that raises questions about the gambling booard’s conduct, Judge Brian Southwood ordered […]

Review of the week:Matthew Krouse A morning in the 5fm studio with Mark Gillman is a bit like a morning in the locker room of the local gym. There are lots of brawny blokes about, some wearing Mark Gillman T- shirts that read: “Seize the morning!” There’s something in Gillman’s character that allows him to […]

Dawie Roodt South Africa has certain serious economic shortcomings, such as a lack of sufficient savings, investments, job creation and economic growth in general. It is widely accepted that governments should provide a social safety net and redistribute income. However, the extent of this redistribution in South Africa is so large that it may affect […]

Ever since Richard Nixon looked into the cameras and said, “Your president is not a crook!” even as he was breaking every law in the book trying to cover up the Watergate break-in, I had learned to cross out the “not” from politicians’ statements. And what confirmation have I not had? George Bush said, “Read […]

Fiona Macleod It’s not surprising a culture of helping oneself to unearned gains has taken root in Mpumalanga – nor that the parks board is the instrument of this culture. Take a bird’s-eye view of the Sand River as it winds its way from the Northern Province through Mpumalanga, and you’ll see why: on one […]

market Mail & Guardian reporter The Mail & Guardian’s circulation grew by 6% between the last six months of 1997 and the last six months of 1998, as quality niche publications bucked the trend of declining newspaper circulations throughout the country. According to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation figures, the M&G sold an average […]

The Bloodline Series Volume 1 is one of five CDs that Cape Town-based New World Music has released, featuring top Khayelitsha musical talent. The Bloodline Series features three reggae acts, Bloodlines, Urban Mystics and The Future, making this a 14-track roots reggae compilation originally recorded live in the townships and subsequently remastered at New World […]

got Beukes? Five arrested Pagad members have laid charges of torture against their interrogators, writes Tangeni Amupadhi Superintendent Henry Beukes, one of South Africa’s old-style policemen with a well- documented history of killing crime suspects, is in the spotlight once again. Five People against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) members arrested in the Karoo recently have […]

When I first walk into the Association for Visual Arts, primed to review Medina Morphet’s exhibition of abstract art, it’s disconcerting to first encounter the illustrative drawings of Bongi Bengu. There also seem to be two distinct crowds here tonight, a relatively bourgeois, middle class crowd who are attracted to Bengu’s narrative depiction, and a […]

Howard Barrell The praise heaped on Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel for his budget by the African National Congress and its alliance partners relied upon the government’s determination to delay until after the election a number of politically awkward economic decisions it knows it must take soon. The South African Communist Party and the Congress […]

Jakes Gerwel shuns publicity, but Rhodes University’s new chancellor played a key role in the Lockerbie agreement, writes Chiara Carter It is a long way from Somerset East to Tripoli and almost as far a distance, metaphorically, from the “home of the left” University of the Western Cape (UWC) to the liberal portals of Rhodes […]

Andrew Worsdale Movie of the week `That was one of the worst, most homophobic pieces of inane, boring rubbish I have ever seen,” or words to that effect spouted one of my colleagues, a leading movie critic. I don’t agree about Terence Malick’s The Thin Red Line. Overseas critics have also been divided about the […]

buffalo Fiona Macleod All the buffalo sold at the prestigious annual KwaZulu-Natal Conservation Service game auction last year were diseased, and the service is now facing huge claims for damages from the buyers. Last year was the first time the KwaZulu- Natal conservation authority sold buffalo at the annual auction, which has become a celebrity […]

Deon Potgieter Boxing The soft-spoken Naas Scheepers will be laying it all on the line when he climbs into the ring against national welterweight champion Peter Malinga at the Carousel next Thursday night. Malinga, a former World Boxing Union welterweight world champion, is moving up the ranks after his sensational first-round dismissal of former world […]

Belinda Beresford The rich man in his castle and the poor man at the gate should each in their own degree be feeling at least content with the personal implications of the latest government budget. Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel has continued the government’s intention of redistributing income by relieving the direct tax burden on […]

After holding the number one spot on the World Music Charts for two months solid, Busi Mhlongo launches her long-awaited second album, UrbanZulu, at home. Bongani Madondo gets to the source of her sound Despite the sea breeze caressing my extra melanin-ebonied skin in a way no massage parlour can, on this particular Friday Durban’s […]

MOZAMBIQUE will soon be one of Africa’s most competitive producers of sugar thanks to the privatisation of the industry two years ago, a senior government official said on Wednesday. Arnaldo Ribeiro, director of Mozambique’s sugar institute, anticipates that Mozambique will be producing at least 300000 tons of sugar a year by 2005, following rehabilitation of […]