Staff Reporter

Review of the week: Brenda Atkinson The Goodman Gallery’s new year triple billing is headed by Mimmo Paladino’s Carte Siciliane, a set of 12 new works etched on handmade paper. Paladino first came to the attention of Europe’s artworld in the late Seventies with a series of drawings, after which he moved on to painting […]

Mungo Soggot:A SECOND LOOK In a letter to the Mail & Guardian last week, Willie Hofmeyr, African National Congress MP responded to an editorial, entitled “Ban guns, build jails, fire Sydney”, which discussed the lamentable state of law and order in South Africa. Hofmeyr hit back by cataloguing the creation of “drastic anti-crime laws”, the […]

The Premiership football boom shows no sign of slowing in 1999 but, asks Pete Nichols, what hope for the sports that live in its shadow? Last year in the United States, the team owners of the National Basketball Association (NBA) almost took the momentous decision to call off the 1998/99 season. In doing so, they […]

Mail & Guardian correspondents report on how the Olympic rings have been tarnished The Olympic flag fluttered above the new lakeside sports museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. Inside, the activity was frantic as journalists tried to absorb the bewildering array of fresh scandals surrounding the world’s biggest sporting event. The choice of the museum as the […]

David Shapshak In countless B-grade science fiction films, the villain was foiled in his attempt to shoot the hero with his own gun because the “smart” gun would only allow itself to be fired by the rightful owner. For the technophiles, this was explained as the gun having an embedded sensor that read the hero’s […]

This week’s Mail & Guardian comes with a new set of features designed to make Africa’s best read even better. l Writer, movie director and semi- retired actor John Matshikiza kicks off a new column, With the Lid Off. Those with long memories will remember this was the title of the regular column his father, […]

force Belinda Beresford The furore surrounding a Hartebeespoort landowner who gave some of his land away has spurred on the local council, farmers and developers to undertake to provide 1 000 black families in the area with their own houses by the new millennium. Already 14 developers have promised to donate land for housing – […]

early John Matshikiza:WITH THE LID OFF I know it is almost February, and the year is ticking by, but I have just woken up to the fact that it really is 1999. That the Y2K madness has officially been allowed to take over as a substitute for logic in our times, that Nelson Mandela is […]

WESTERN diplomats on Friday formally protested the illegal detention and torture of two Zimbabwean journalists by military police. Envoys from the European Union — which includes Britain, the country’s former colonial power — Australia, Canada, Japan and the United States delivered a protest note to acting Foreign Minister Nathan Shamuyarira. The statement called on the […]

THE DAVID GLEASON COLUMN My word, some bunk has been written in recent weeks about the so-called sins of insider trading, ever since the new Act (no 135 of 1998) became effective – and by commentators who should know better. It seems everyone is in agreement with the general premise that once the phrase “insider […]

Friday night: Ferial Haffajee It’s neither the hood nor high society. But a Friday night in Johannesburg’s suburbs of Mayfair and Fordsburg is an evening in a community. At the Fordsburg Square entire families are out at play. There is no strict age policy. The very old and the very young mingle with teens out […]

THE second journalist captured by rebels in Sierra Leone capital Freetown was freed on Wednesday. Spanish journalist Javier Espinoza said he was surprised to have been freed, who had held him for two days. Espinoza, a reporter for the daily El Mundo, was detained with French reporter Patrick Saint-Paul on Monday when they crossed into […]

Andy Capostagno Cricket There was a time when umpires were like good little children – they were seen and not heard. In the good old days there were 13 people on the field, two of them made the decisions and if those decisions were wrong the only people who knew were the 13 in the […]

More and more South African artists are climbing on the video bandwagon, but Conrad Welz has been at the forefront of the genre for many years, writes Lauren Shantall `It’s about a sensory mind fuck,” says pioneering South African video artist Konrad Welz of his work. No doubt his uncompromising stance played some role in […]

Zimbabwe has joined the grim club of police states, writes Mercedes Sayagues Zimbabwe’s government is showing its true colours, and the hue is the olive green of a military dictatorship. In the past two weeks, basic democratic principles have been crudely disregarded: the military declared itself above the law and institutional torture reared its ugly […]

of UDM official Chiara Carter United Democratic Movement official Michael Matiyase was gunned down in a Cape Town transit camp on Sunday against a backdrop of intrigue about the allocation of housing sites. The bitter animosity between two rival organisations at the Samora Machel camp is yet another chapter in the long history of Byzantine […]

THE Democratic Party scooped the municipal by-election at the former National Party stronghold of Kraaifontein in the Western Cape on Thursday. DP candidate Fanie Jacobs stormed in 531 votes ahead of independent candidate Deon Basson with 364. The New National Party candidate Wilfred Hambly came in a distant third with 250 votes.

bloodshed Chris McGreal The KwaZulu-Natal town of Richmond is bracing itself for another bout of bloodshed this weekend with the funerals of assassinated United Democratic Movement secretary general and warlord Sifiso Nkabinde and those killed in a revenge attack on an African National Congress family attending a funeral vigil. Nkabinde’s right-hand man and probable successor […]

SOUTH African golfer Ernie Els got off to a good start in the Heineken Classic in Perth, Australia, on Thursday. He shot a first-round, seven-under-par 65 to share second spot with Briton Roger Winchester. Early leader Swede Jarmo Sandelin is one shot ahead on 64.

THE United Democratic Movement in Gauteng on Thursday called on all political parties to sign a pre-election peace pact. At a service in Johannesburg for slain UDM KwaZulu-Natal midlands leader Sifiso Nkabinde, Gauteng UDM leader Lulama Mshumpela said: “In order to have a violence-free election in this province I call on all political parties to […]

Andrew Muchineripi Soccer The first indication that it was going to be no walkover for Bafana Bafana in Mauritius came about five minutes before the kick-off of the drawn African Nations Cup Group Four qualifier at the ramshackle King George V Stadium. Mauritian captain Jean-Marc Ithier was a picture of grim determination during the pre-match […]

Tangeni Amupadhi A policeman is to testify against three colleagues accused of beating “People’s Poet” Mzwakhe Mbuli last week. Sergeant Maraka Lesika said he saw three other policemen assault Mbuli, but he refused to give details of what he witnessed. Mbuli laid charges of assault and crimen injuria at the Lyttelton police station in Pretoria […]

Impinging, as it does, on the font of the new South Africa, the row between Judge Johann Kriegler and the government over the organisation of the next general election is obviously a matter of major concern to the country. But we cannot help but fear that it is symptomatic of an even wider and more […]

The winner of the Mail & Guardian and Madam& Eve: It’s a Jungle out There competition is Georgina Pickett of Pretoria, who wins an original full- size Madam & Eve cartoon and a signed copy of their new book, It’s a Jungle out There. The 10 runners up are: Dan Naidu of Scottburgh, Tsholanang Thekiso […]

FURTHER flaws in the identity parade involving robbery accused “people’s poet” Mzwakhe Mbuli were exposed on Thursday in the Pretoria High Court. Not only was Mbuli significantly taller than all those standing with him, but an Inspector Christiaan Theunissen who was involved in his arrest was present at the identity parade against regulations. Theunissen, despite […]

A FIFA team is inspecting hotels in eight Nigerian cities to decide if they are good enough to be used at the World Youth Cup in April, organisers said on Thursday. Nigeria ’99 spokesperson Paul Bassey said the three-member Tournaments Accommodation Committee team will be joined by another delegation on Saturday for a final inspection. […]

Duncan Mackay Juan Antonio Samaranch used to dream of winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). He pointed proudly to having eliminated the hypocrisy of “shamateurism”, put the games on a firm financial footing and, through diplomacy and globe- trotting, ended the political boycotts of the […]

As the West Indies wind up their humiliating cricket tour of South Africa, they have very little hope of regaining their lost grandeur of the Eighties, argues Cameron Duodo No one will feel as devastated by the 5-0 whitewash of the West Indies by South Africa more than Windies captain Brian Lara. Lara ran into […]

Mark Tran in New York John Meriwether, the head of stricken hedge fund Long Term Capital Management, recently accused big Wall Street firms of preying on his company when it lost millions last year, in the hope of buying up his firm on the cheap. He was speaking in public for the first time since […]

PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela’s wife, Graa Machel, received an award on Thursday from the Council of Europe’s North-South Centre in recognition of the role she has played in protecting human rights and democracy. The 1998 North-South Prize was to be handed over at a ceremony in Strasbourg, France, during the Council of Europe’s parliamentary session. Machel […]

William Leith A MONK SWIMMING by Malachy McCourt (HarperCollins) In Angela’s Ashes, the bestselling autobiography by Frank McCourt, Frank’s younger brother Malachy appears first as a grimy urchin, and then as an older version of one. In A Monk Swimming, the younger brother’s memoir, Frank flits through the action in a correspondingly sensible, buttoned-up fashion. […]

Making just one of the millions of proteins we manufacture every day involves copying the recipe from DNA, ferrying the building block to a kind of biological knitting machine, threading the blocks into a chain, folding the chain into complex shapes and finally adding various chemical identity tags. At every stage, things can go wrong. […]