Multinationals are moving into hitherto untouched areas, with catastrophic results, writes John Vidal Amungme tribal leader Yosepha Alomang, a mother of 10, should be in Britain. But as she boarded the plane this month in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, to head for London and the Rio Tinto annual meeting, she was stopped by the military. Had […]
Robert Kirby: Loose Cannon `One day you boys will find Latin phrases like these come in very useful,” alpaca-coated Brother H used to murmur as he savagely whipped our upturned hands with a thick leather whalebone-spined strap. Six hits. Three for the left, three for the right. A rider discipline to the hand- thrashings: learn […]
Chris Gordon Luanda’s frantic daytime commercial activity belies tension in the peace process, but at night the city falls quiet, reflecting the fears that the low-level war will increase when the United Nations completes its pull- out at the end of June. The new impasse comes as Unita refused to hand over their political and […]
Charlene Smith On March 16 1984, former president PW Botha met his Mozambican counterpart, Samora Machel, at the Nkomati River to sign an accord that effectively blackmailed Mozambique. Next month, on June 6, President Nelson Mandela and Machel’s succesor, President Jaoquim Chissano, will open the Maputo development corridor, strengthening relations between the two countries and […]
Greg Bowes Johannesburg nightlife Suddenly on Saturday nights in Johannesburg there’s a welcome and regular alternative to the usual mundane mega- raves – and one that’s showcasing local talent on the fringes of live music. And I’ll be damned, people are still dancing! The Stylus Lounge takes place every weekend at the stunning but seldom […]
Craig Bishop The launch of the National Environment Management Bill this week is expected to give communities a “lot more political muscle in dealing with companies”, says Chris Albertyn, national co-ordinator of the Environmental Justice Networking Forum. “The new Bill recognises that the government has very little capacity to deal with companies breaking environmental laws. […]
Mail & Guardian reporter South Africa’s financial markets took a drubbing this week as the rand fell to an all-time low and the Reserve Bank raised its key lending rate by more than two percentage points to 18%. The rand dropped to R5,16 against the dollar on Monday after rumours in London and New York […]
Tim Radford United States space scientists believe they will be able to conjure up refrigerator and furnace insulation tiles out of thin air. They are experimenting with a composite material called aerogel, the lightest solid known. A lump of this “frozen smoke” the size of a man would weigh less than 0,45kg, but could bear […]
Andrew Clements CDs of the week Naxos deserves an award. Using archive material supplied by the Canadian-based Immortal Performances of Recorded Music Society, they’ve secured the commercial release of operatic radio broadcasts, taken from live performances from 1937 to 1943, some of them hitherto only available as expensive bootlegs. Not everyone will like these: recording […]
Arvind Ganesan In their search for finite resources, oil companies must partner governments who may have dismal human rights records – witness Total’s involvement with the Burmese junta in constructing the Yadana natural-gas pipeline. In Colombia the drive to develop oil fields has landed companies in the middle of a war zone. To ensure oil […]
Mail & Guardian Reporter Radio’s Oscars, the annual Sony awards, shone on South Africa at this year’s glam function at Grosvenor House in London’s Park Lane. A documentary presented by Mail & Guardian correspondent Eddie Koch and produced by Johannesburg-based educational broadcasters Ulwazi won a bronze. The Last Voice – the compelling story of Kalahari […]
Peter Mullan, winner of the best actor award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, has a tale to tell those who wonder if it all might go to his head. It stems from his experience working on Braveheart, Mel Gibson’s Oscar-winner about the exploits of William Wallace. Mullan remembers watching the director of the second […]
WEDNESDAY, 7.00PM: JOSEPH KONY and a group of his Lord’s Resistance Army forces have been surrounded by Ugandan troops at Polaro in the northern Gulu district of the country. Ugandan troops have reportedly killed more than killed 100 of Kony’s LRA rebels. The New Vision newspaper reported that Ugandan troops have freed 140 civilians abducted […]
TUESDAY, 1.30PM: THE South African Police Service is considering cutting 10000 jobs in terms of chief executive Meyer Kahn’s new strategic plan, which was slated in Parliament on Monday by the South African Police Union. But divisional commissioner Neels Steenkamp said Kahn has been misunderstood, and that the 10000 figure refers to natural attrition over […]
TUESDAY, 7.30PM: ARMED bandits in Angola are forcing people to become refugees within their own country, with almost 40000 having fled to towns, largely from the south-western province of Benguela, according to the United Nations mission in the country. It is likely that most such bandits are demobilised or recalcitrant members of Unita, the long-time […]
Marion Edmunds gets to grips with how people felt 50 years ago when the National Party came to power The National Party today is a shadow of its former self, publicly regretting the policy of apartheid which brought it to power in the highly charged national elections of May 26 1948. Fifty years ago it […]
I never thought I was the type who’d join a cult. But I did. It’s not a cult of personality, but of technology. It’s the cult of the PalmPilot – a simple hand-held computer and operating system that now accounts for over 60% of the global personal digital assistant (PDA) market. Most religious cults attract […]
WHO IS . . . TONY LEON? David Beresford An obituary on the English philosopher, Bertrand Russell, memorialised him as “a gadfly on the rump of civilisation”. The same might be said of Democratic Party leader Tony Leon as he buzzes noisily around the rump of South African society. The question facing the DP is […]
Bongani Siqoko The road to Alexandra clinic is lined with filthy industrial buildings. But the large, brightly painted clinic looks cared for and cheerful. Many visitors mistake it for a creche. Inside, however, it looks like any other state-funded health institution. Very long queues, busy nurses, crying children and wheelchairs fill the waiting room. The […]
Tangeni Amupadhi Police are three times more likely to commit crime than ordinary members of the public, and that’s official. In its forthcoming monthly report, the Human Rights Committee says statistics provided by Minister of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi show the shocking extent of police involvement in criminal activities. Mufamadi told the National Assembly […]
Sechaba ka’Nkosi National electricity supplier Eskom and local authorities are fighting an uphill battle against the booming illegal business of “alternative” electricity supply. It’s alternative, say its practitioners, because most residents whose power has been cut by town councils for non-payment prefer to use their services rather than paying the R650 reconnection fee. The practice […]
Andrew Worsdale Movie of the week I didn’t have any hopes that Barry Levinson would ever make a good movie – or at least one I’d like. Everyone raved about Diner. I thought it was self-indulgent, adolescent crap. Rain Man won Oscars. I thought it sentimental, badly styled rubbish (why did everything, but everything, have […]
Tangeni Amupadhi Gangs have triumphed in Westbury – Johannesburg’s equivalent of the Cape Flats ganglands – after promises of big business and politicians have come to naught. In recent weeks four men have been slain in gun fights – an event familiar to this dirt-poor community which, for decades, has enjoyed the notoriety of having […]
Phillip Kakaza It wasn’t too long ago that Zolani Mkhiva, an imbongi or praise singer, became Imbongi ye Sizwe -Ethe Poet of the Nation – when he took the podium and sang the praises of Nelson Mandela at his inauguration. Four years later, after protracted negotiations with recording companies, he has graced the nation with […]
Andrew Muchineripi Soccer Bafana Bafana coach Philippe Troussier is nothing if not unpredictable. While the media differed over which personnel he would deploy against Zambia at FNB Stadium on Wednesday night, there was consensus on a 3-5-2 formation. So what does the controversial “White Magician” do? He proves once again that he is le boss […]
Noam Chomsky The current call for international debt cancellation is welcome, but debt does not just go away. Someone pays, and history confirms that risks tend to be socialised in the system mislabelled “free enterprise capitalism”. The old-fashioned idea is that responsibility falls upon the borrowers and lenders. Money was not borrowed by assembly plant […]
Wally Mbhele Mounting frustration over the continued incarceration of Robert McBride, who has been languishing in a Mozambican jail without trial for almost two-and-a-half months, has prompted calls for the South African government to become more active in securing the freedom of its foreign affairs official. After the Mozambican authorities failed this week either to […]
Elvis Costello pays tribute to Frank Sinatra My mam tells me that one of my first words was “skin”. I was not an especially precocious child, I couldn’t say whole sentences, but I knew how to request that I’ve Got You under My Skin be played on the family record player. Then again, I might […]
FRIDAY, 6.30PM: A MARKINOR poll released on Friday has revealed that the Democratic Party, Inkatha Freedom Party and United Democratic Movement stand neck-and-neck behind a declining National Party in their current levels of support. The United Democratic Movement is the only party with the potential to usurp the National Party as official opposition to the […]
Ferial Haffajee In your ear It’s good to hear South Africans holding their own among the products of one of the world’s best broadcasters. Safm’s daily joint programme with the BBC is an easy synergy providing a boost to drive-time radio around the country. It is on Safm every day from 5 to 7pm. The […]
Wonder Hlongwa The offices of three southern Cape newspapers have been burnt to the ground in an apparent revenge attack for reporting on the activities of gangs in the Hangklip area. The offices of the Hangklip Herald, Hermanus Herald and Gansbaai Herald were set alight in the early hours of last Monday morning. A petrol […]
Angella Johnson The first thing Hazel Kidson did on entering the Johannesburg courtroom where she is standing trial for murdering her husband was reapply her lipstick. Then the bejewelled 52-year-old sat clutching her miniature Bible. “I always carry it with me,” she later explained. After more than a year in jail, she was dressed to […]