Staff Reporter

THE second round of voter registration kicked off around the country at 9am on Friday, despite this week’s resignation of Independent Electoral Commission chief Judge Johann Kriegler. Registration will continue on Saturday and through Sunday. Only about a third of potential voters registered in the first round at the end of November. If insufficient voters […]

Widow Product:BLACK WIDOW V3.63 by SoftByte Lab If you’ve gone through the tedious process of trying to save an entire website on to your hard drive file by file, you probably got the jitters thinking about your telephone bill. And if you discovered afterwards that suddenly all those images you painstakingly saved cannot be viewed […]

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 […]

NIGERIA’S former finance minister Olu Falae huddled with advisers on Thursday after he became the first official candidate for the Nigerian presidency and the flagbearer of the south-west based Alliance for Democracy (AD). The radical leftist AD is one of three parties running in the polls, alongside the rightwing All Peoples Party and centre-left Peoples […]

AN Wilson FAYED: THE UNAUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY by Tom Bower (Macmillan) One of the most richly enjoyable incidents in this extraordinary story occurs in September 1964. Papa Doc, the Haitian tyrant, has engaged a young but illustrious Kuwaiti sheikh to rebuild the harbour in Port-au-Prince. The sheikh tries to persuade some British oil experts that there […]

DENIS BARNETT, Richmond | Thursday 5.30pm. ARMY and police were deployed in force on Thursday as the United Democratic Movement held a memorial service for its assassinated leader Sifiso Nkabinde. The Methodist service, held at a school 400 metres from Nkabinde’s home in his Magoda township stronghold near the KwaZulu-Natal town of Richmond, heard angry […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

David Shapshak and Joyce Barrett The Cape Town Olympic bid team knew an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member was “available to the highest bidder”, but it did not make use of this information to influence the bid. Caught up in the biggest corruption scandal of the IOC’s 105-year history, disgraced Swaziland IOC member David Sibandze […]

Two weeks ago, having served an 18- month ban for biting a lump out of Evander Holyfield’s ear, Mike Tyson won his comeback fight with a single blow that shattered the hopes of all `right- thinking’ boxing fans. But whatever his crimes, and however unbalanced he may be, there are those who feel he is […]

Chiara Carter The Democratic Party is anticipating further defections by New National Party politicians following its stunning defeat of the NNP in an area which for decades was a stronghold of the former National Party. The Kraaifontein municipal by-election on Wednesday saw DP candidate Fanie Jacobs win 531 votes, as opposed to 364 votes cast […]

ANGOLA called on Thursday for the United Nations to publish results of its enquiry into the June plane crash which killed UN envoy Alioune Blondin Beye. Beye spent the last two years of his life mediating in Angola’s peace process between the Luanda government and Unita rebels. He was killed last June when the light […]

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 […]

testicles and electrodes Some men have always been ready to try anything to stay potent. However, the pseudo-scientific approach to ageing began only a century ago. Charles-Edouard Brown-Squard, a French doctor, announced that he felt 20 years younger after injecting “extract of fresh guinea-pig and dog testicles”. Within a year, 1 200 physicians were administering […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

SOME 120 projects worth over $561,3-million were committed to Maputo province in Mozambique during 1998, the Mozambique’s Centre for Investment Promotion said on Thursday. The centre said that South Africa is the largest single direct investor into Mozambique, accounting for 180 projects worth $762,3-million. Portugal is the second largest foreign investor, with 225 projects worth […]

Ann Eveleth A Zambian student committed suicide after his South African boarding school expelled him and booked a ticket to send him home without informing his parents. International School of South Africa (Issa) principal Ed Khabele said he told lower sixth form student Tabo Mwenechanya (18) at a disciplinary inquiry on October 31 that he […]

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.

Coenraad Visser Opera as unashamed extravaganza. That is what the audience can expect when Operama’s production of Verdi’s Aida is presented at the Minolta Loftus Superstadium on Saturday night. Verdi’s moving love triangle is set in ancient Egypt. It tells the simple story of the love of Aida, daughter of the Ethiopian king and prisoner […]

The proposed national lottery is likely to prove hugely popular with South Africans and could benefit NGOs. Evidence wa ka Ngobeni reports Millions of people, and needy organisations, could soon benefit from the first South African national lottery, which is expected to contribute hundreds of rands to government budgets, as well as generating billions of […]

Sifiso Nkabinde ordered a hit on his own mother, writes a Mail & Guardian reporter The Mail & Guardian is in possession of two statements by former members of slain United Democratic Movement secretary general Sifiso Nkabinde’s Richmond self- defence unit alleging that in late 1989 Nkabinde ordered the assassination of his mother and one […]

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 […]

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 […]

Cuban music’s local cult status is soaring with the re-release of some legendary jam sessions by Cuba’s greatest musos, writes Peter Makurube Born of a country in which politics and passion are the order of the day, Cuban music has always enjoyed cult status in South Africa. But its following grew to massive proportions last […]

Motel Jonathan Romney There have been a few changes round the homestead. There’s a new neon sign out front, and the poky old fruit cellar has been refurbished as a place where you could get down to some serious taxidermy. They’ve even replaced the shower curtain in Cabin 1. Otherwise, life is much as it […]

George Hazeldon believes his proposed self-sufficient community will solve South Africa’s crime problem … for some. Chris McGreal went behind the electric fence George Hazeldon likens his vision to Mont St Michel, the ancient French monastery and fortress. Detractors dismiss the British property developer’s scheme as a fool’s paradise. Either way, the contracts are rolling […]

Wally Mbhele Embattled Mpumalanga Premier Mathews Phosa is set to be discharged of his duties next month as premier and African National Congress provincial chair when the party meets to finalise its list of parliamentary candidates. The ANC committee investigating the causes of infighting among ANC heavyweights in Mpumalanga – which is scheduled to complete […]

The collapse of Tollgate, the Cape- based conglomerate of which Julian Askin was chair and principal shareholder, and the subsequent examination into its failure have produced one of the most torrid, unpleasant and seamy corporate chapters in South Africa’s history. Formerly a South African resident, Askin mixed a career as a journalist with occasional stockbroking. […]