Staff Reporter

Angella Johnson VIEW FROM A BROAD `When I cool the base, rock this place,” chanted the female singer over the mega sound system. I watched entranced as gum-chewing young men wearing headphones and outsize clothes studiously fiddled with vinyl records on industrial-size players. The Foundation club in Rosebank was certainly rocking. Soon it would be […]

Tangeni Amupadhi One of eight policemen being investigated for killing Josiah “Fingers” Rabotapi two weeks ago has admitted wrong-doing in the death of a suspect. Henry Beukes, who has been the subject of investigation for at least three murders of suspects in his 22-year career, acknowledged in 1994 he used more than necessary force in […]

CHRISTIAN FIGENSCHOU, Johannesburg | Thursday 5.00PM. LATEST new vehicle sales figures released by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers show that sales of new passenger cars slumped in August to the lowest level this year. The only good news came in the heavy commercial sector, where sales held their own in spite of declining business […]

Robert Kirby: Loose cannon I hope this isn’t too naive a question, but do we still have a minister of environment? I seem to recall that Pallo Jordan was in charge of that area. The last I heard of him was when he gallantly saved some rare butterflies from being wiped off the planet in […]

Joseph Kahn `From the standpoint of the United States economy, Russia does not matter.” That was the line coming from US stock market optimists until late last week. Of all US exports, the reasoning went, less than 1% were to Russia. The Russian economy is no larger than that of the Netherlands. Few people invest […]

Anthony Holiday Over a Barrel The secret malaise is no longer concealable. Its symptoms are manifest everywhere from conclaves in Cape Town to the conflict in the Congo. South Africa’s Department of Foreign Affairs – and hence also Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and President Nelson Mandela himself – are taking decisions and engaging in the […]

Brenda Atkinson Multimedia The world of William Kentridge is one of considerable public profile, prolific artistic production, and enigmatic private symbolism. South Africa’s most acclaimed artist, his conceptual and aesthetic sensibilities have brought him growing critical kudos over the decades. But despite his international ubiquity, Kentridge remains something of a dark horse. Reserved in interviews […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi A high-level investigation headed by Eastern Cape Premier Makhenkesi Stofile into allegations that three senior provincial African National Congress members are “ANC members during the day and United Democratic Movement members by night” has run into snags. The people who first made the allegations against the three party members have failed to provide […]

A new theory suggests kids learn their behaviour from their peer group, not their parents. But should we let home life off the hook, asks John Diamond The Jesuits, it turns out, were too optimistic by half. Give them your boy until he is seven by all means, but the best they’ll be able to […]

Mungo Soggot It does not take long to grasp why those familiar with Monrovia scoff in disbelief when they hear that Emanuel Shaw II says he checked into the John F Kennedy Medical Centre. It was once considered to be one of West Africa’s finest medical facilities, but is now the public hospital for the […]

Michael Finch Commonwealth Games Dope tests on lawn bowlers? Believe it. That’s how serious the South African team is taking its participation in the Commonwealth Games starting in Kuala Lumpur next week. Despite 13 medal-melting withdrawals, including athletics gold medal certainty Llewellyn Herbert, the team will travel to their second Commonwealth Games almost sure to […]

Andrew Muchineripi Soccer Those good people who occupy the houses around Minolta Loftus in a beautiful, tree-lined Pretoria suburb are accustomed to the blue banners of the Blue Bulls and the smell of braaied boerewors. Come noon on Sunday the streets around the citadel of Pretoria rugby are in for a cultural shock as thousands […]

Swapna Prabhakaran The trials of the alleged kingpin of a major KwaZulu-Natal crime ring – known as the “Curry Mafia” -were this week adjourned until late next year, because the Pretoria courts are too busy to deal with the matter now. Pietermaritzburg businessman Suresh “Surie” Maharaj will appear before court in three trials set down […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 9.00pm. PREMIER Soccer League spokesman Andrew Dipela said on Thursday that the decision to clear referee Petros Mathabela of any wrongdoing in officiating a league match was taken by a sub-committee of Safa and not the Motsimele Commission as was reported on Wednesday. “The Safa committee was acting on the […]

Suzy Bell On show in Durban There’s a mighty fine poetic clerk working in the corporation department in Durban, whose head is a-swim with splicing Strauss, Shakespeare, Mozart and Milton, together with baubles and beads collected from Las Vegas, Paris and Durban. He is performance artist Vernon Burns, who has designed eight highly operatic costumes […]

Mail & Guardian reporter The Mail & Guardian has had a glimpse of the financial rewards enjoyed by Don Mkhwanazi, the former chair of the Central Energy Fund whose decision to hire Emanuel Shaw II, his friend and businesss associate, triggered the state oil scandal. Documents obtained by the M&G show that in 1996 Mkhwanazi […]

Tim Radford Japanese and Irish researchers have begun to build a virtual guinea pig – a computer code version of a human who would be used to test the effects of powerful new drugs. The project is called Psudo, which stands for parallel simulation of drug release code. But it is likely to be dubbed […]

Many thousands of women undergo plastic surgery to alter their looks, but when Orlan does it, it’s called art. Alex Dodd reports `In the future we will change our bodies as easily as we change our hair colour,” says radical French performance artist Orlan, currently in Johannesburg. She is participating in a conference at the […]

Experimental choreographer Robyn Orlin previews the most magnetic work on offer at this year’s wildly varied [email protected] festival When the first scent of jasmine hits Johannesburg it’s the signal that Arts Alive, the festival that wakes the city from its winter slumber, is hotly imminent. This year is the Dance Factory’s sixth annual festival in […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Freetown | Friday 8.30PM. THE rebel leader who instigated Sierra Leone’s civil war in 1991 has been charged with treason in Freetown. Foday Sankoh, head of the Revolutionary United Front, was led into a Freetown courtroom under heavy guard on Friday. He made no plea, and his case has been adjourned to September […]

The investigation into the Mpumalanga Parks Board’s dodgy deals is to be carried out in secret, reports Justin Arenstein from Nelspruit Judge Willem Heath personally took control this week of investigations into a dodgy R340-million offshore loan deal set up by the Mpumalanga Parks Board, and promptly threw a blanket of secrecy over his special […]

Keith Thomas ON HISTORY by Eric Hobsbawm (Abacus) Eric Hobsbawm turned 80 last year. He is probably the best-known living British historian, certainly the one whose work has been translated into the most languages. He brings to his historical writing some outstanding gifts: a probing intelligence, exceptional analytic power, great linguistic facility and an extremely […]

Arundhati Roy took the literary world by storm last year with her first novel, The God of Small Things, which won the Booker prize. In her first piece of writing since then, she expresses her horror at the nuclear arms race in her native India “The desert shook,” the government of India informed us (its […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 8.15pm. THE xenophobic mob-murder of three foreigners on a train on Thursday night is not the first attack of its kind, and is likely to spark further killing, experts warned on Friday. Centre for Policy Studies director Steven Friedman said recent studies have revealed a strong resentment towards aliens, especially […]

Kenyan scientist Joyce Poole, an expert on elephant behaviour, comments on the recent kidnapping of baby elephants from Botswana As a scientist who has spent two decades studying the social behaviour and vocal communication of elephants, I have been asked to comment on the capture of 50 baby elephants in the Tuli Block, Botswana. It […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 5.00pm. DEMOCRATIC Republic of Congo rebel leader Ernest Wamba dia Wamba on Friday said he is considering his movement’s participation in the all-party peace talks called on Thursday by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Wamba admitted, however, that the rebel movement has not yet received an invitation to the talks. Announcing […]

Wonder Hlongwa South Africa’s branch of the international corruption watchdog Transparency International has accused certain newspapers of feeding public perceptions that corruption increased after the African National Congress took power. In its first report since its inception last year, Transparency International South Africa (Tisa) accuses the newspapers of being influenced by their political agendas. It […]

Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg It seemed like it was never going to happen; the eagerly-awaited moment when Johannesburg’s performance underground would raise itself from latex-clad haunches and step into the mainstream clubland spotlight. The first public suspension in a Johannesburg nightclub; theatre for 2000. Two boys, 40 hooks, a metre off the ground […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Friday 9.15pm. MINERAL and Energy Minister Penuell Maduna on Friday apologised to Parliament for inappropriately accusing Auditor-General Henri Kluever of covering up losses of R170-million in the Strategic Fuel Fund in Parliament in June 1997. Maduna’s apology comes after a multi-party parliamentary committee probing the subject for over a year […]

Emanuel Shaw II is too sick to appear in court but well enough to attend meetings. Mungo Soggot reports from Monrovia Emanuel Shaw II, the Liberian politician who insinuated himself into South Africa’s state oil industry, has tried to deceive the Johannesburg High Court by filing a fraudulent doctor’s note purportedly signed by Liberia’s minister […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Employees who are fed up with the nonsensical vocabulary and endless meetings of the modern workplace have found a way to undermine both with a new pastime: Buzzword Bingo. Instead of numbers, bingo cards are filled with the platitudes of business speak – terms such as “add value”, “going forward”, “synergy”, […]

Traditional chiefs may abstain from voting in next year’s elections, writes Sechaba ka’Nkosi KwaZulu-Natal chiefs who voted for the African National Congress in the last election are signalling they are likely to abstain from party political activity in next year’s election. At the heart of their dissension is unhappiness with the recognition and remuneration they […]