Stephen Gray Unspoilt places The clanking centre of the Moffat mission near Kuruman is a real old museum piece – a manual printing press. A cast-iron precision machine, it kept running through most of the 19th century. Then abandoned and shipped to Kimberley, it was exhibited there as a pretty historic item – the contraption […]
Maggie O’Kane in Niger They are sitting in a corner of the hospital, shaded by their compound wall. She is three years old, with dark, dusty ringlets and a buttercup yellow dress with faded pink tulips. They are on a wicker mat, apart from the others, him rubbing her shoulders and smoothing her hair. The […]
Ferial Haffajee The ruby red BMW roadster races down the main road in Eldorado Park, past rows and rows of grim council houses. At full throttle, the front doors open and close to simulate a bird in flight. The Majimbos are in town – the gang’s symbol is a flying bird and Eldorado Park, south […]
Lizeka Mda: CITY LIMITS The traffic on Jan Smuts Avenue is crawling at a snail’s pace on Friday morning. Oxford Road is no better. So what else is new? To the traffic chaos on its doorstep, the Park Hyatt hotel at the corner of Oxford and Biermann Avenue in Rosebank presents an inscrutable face of […]
David Lewis and Jayendra Naidoo South Africa has chosen a path of social dialogue – but is it working? Social dialogue reflects the unique national pressures and circumstances of a state making a transition to democracy and introducing far-reaching economic reforms. A social partnership that is associated with a reduction in inequalities of wealth, income […]
Vuyo Mhlati In response to the article “Tempers Flare on the Wild Coast” (Monitor, May 8 to 14), I’d like to make it clear that the call from communities on the Wild Coast is not for more consultation, but for economic development and jobs. At the launch of investment projects on the Wild Coast, the […]
Andrew Muchineripi Soccer The curtain finally comes down on a seemingly endless South African soccer season this Sunday when Orlando Pirates and Sundowns contest the Bob Save Super Bowl final. Pirates have played 52 domestic and African matches since last July and Sundowns 51, so do not be surprised if some players look a little […]
Saul Klein A business exists to satisfy its customers. But South Africa’s poor service attitude is an important factor in the country regularly being ranked near the bottom in terms of competitiveness. One component of competitiveness that captures our poor performance has to do with the market orientation of local business. Market orientation means designing […]
Mail & Guardian reporter The archbishop of Cape Town, the Reverend Njongonkulu Ndungane, is to present the world’s largest gathering of Anglican bishops with an explosive document suggesting the church take a fresh look at issues such as polygamy and euthanasia. The 24-page report, entitled Called to Full Humanity, is to head the agenda at […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby Deja vu. The Springbok captain is involved in negotiations to form a players’ union, Louis Luyt is in the news and euphoria over Springbok success has died down to a hoarse croak. Take yourself back to August 1995, less than two months after South Africa had won the World Cup. Louis Luyt […]
Anton Simanowitz Nyatela Baloyi, living in a village in Khomanani Tribal Authority in the former Venda, is typical of many of the poorest families in the Northern Province. She lives in two mud brick rondavels together with five children. She has no husband -he passed away some time ago, and supports her family with her […]
Ferial Haffajee The government will tax private radio and television stations, as well as signal distributors, to fund local-content production. A draft White Paper on broadcasting says a fund will be established to subsidise local producers. It is understood that private owners may have to pay up to 1% of their profits, which translates into […]
Michael Nurok Given that the number of people who die each year of malaria is equal to the cumulative number of Aids-related deaths in 15 years, one would expect at least equal amounts of money to be spent on research. Yet less than 10% of the amount spent on international HIV research goes into malaria […]
Janet Smith When SABC3 announced early this year that it was to screen a two-part South African documentary called Death, TV writers muttered darkly about a bleak society, an odious world view and the depths to which our national psyche had sunk. Then the documentary from writer-director Luiz DeBarros and producer Mark Schwinges won three […]
Martin Kettle in Washington The United States has discovered a fashionable new writer, and his name is Norman Mailer. Mailer was on the front pages of the New York Times and USA Today last week. He has done a television interview with American breakfast television’s flagship show. All this is because he has published a […]
Mukoni T Ratshitanga The National Party lost three municipal by-elections to the Democratic Party this week, indicating that the party’s support base among white South Africans is crumbling and raising questions about its future. The NP polled 22,3% in its traditional stronghold of Bergvliet in the Western Cape – 48 hours after Gerald Morkel was […]
The two police chiefs who vindicated Vito Palazzolo last year are likely to come under investigation as part of a new police probe, reports Andy Duffy Police chief George Fivaz has called on the presidential investigation task unit to re- open a probe into an alleged crime ring involving police, state officials and convicted Mafia […]
The end is in sight for endless banking queues, writes Charlene Smith The bank client of the future will hardly ever go into his or her bank. Indeed, today already the way to save on frustrations and bank charges is to bank electronically. Increasingly we are moving toward a cashless society with petrol cards, debit […]
If you find yourself attracted to shares in the building and construction sector, you had better make sure you have a stomach for volatility. Building and construction stocks are among the most variable on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. An analyst at Nedcor Investment Bank explains that performance in the sector is really a function of […]
Krisjan Lemmer Mrs H Bingham, a resident at a Johannesburg retirement village, would like it to be known that her name is Henrietta, not Hugh. And no – she does not know the whereabouts of that aristocratic desperado, Lord Lucan. Henrietta has been inundated with calls from investigative journalists convinced she is Hugh Bingham, the […]
Phillip Kakaza strolled down Yeoville’s Rockey Street and noticed it is ready for reinvigoration Rockey Street, in the heart of Yeoville, is probably South Africa’s most famous jolling street, lined with watering holes and clubs, rocking till dawn. Some say it has gone downhill in recent years, but it still draws the crowds at night. […]
Fiona Macleod Douw Kruger has this theory that buck can’t tell the difference between blue and green, because they have a blue receptor in their eyes. To the human eye, however, his bright blue camouflage uniform is an alarm signal. This means he can stalk really close to his quarry when he’s out hunting, but […]
Dan Ncayiyana Right to Reply I feel constrained to respond to the letter by my friend and colleague, Professor Cecil Abrahams (May 8 to 14), in which he purports to write “in my capacity as an acknowledged scholar of African studies”. Whatever that distinction may mean (I am not aware of an academic discipline called […]
Chris Ball Switched-on managements who know that stress and poor performance are bedfellows are bringing in outside industrial agony aunts to counsel employees. Up to 25% of all United States staff are now covered by so-called employee assistance programmes (EAPs). In Britain, the schemes only cover about 6% or 1,3-million of the working population so […]
Larry Elliott It is just before dawn in Kinshasa on October 30 1974. In a boxing ring in the middle of a football stadium lies George Foreman, knocked out by Muhammad Ali in one of the biggest sporting upsets of the century. As lightning crackles overhead, 60 000 Zaireans cheer Ali, world champion again after […]
An offensive by southern Sudan’s secessionists will fuel famine, writes Peter Beaumont from Wun Rog The wind was blowing dust devils in Bahr el Ghazal, southern Sudan’s arid plain of thorns. It promised to bring rain but in some areas few farmers will be ready if it comes. There is little sign of any attempt […]
Mukoni T Ratshitanga Police and home affairs officials in Mpumalanga and the Northern Province are deporting large numbers of former Mozambican refugees despite a 1996 Cabinet resolution that gave them citizenship, according to reports from the provinces. Last week 120 former refugees were arrested in Giyani while travelling to work, says Nicola Johnston of the […]
Rory Johnston Operators of Earth satellites will be holding their breath on November 17 as Earth sails into the worst meteor storm for 33 years. Particles travelling at 240 000km/h will crash into virtually every satellite, and the damage could be slight or it could be enough to put satellites out of commission entirely. Every […]
For a few weeks in May ’68 in Paris, students and workers united in a wave of strikes and demonstrations that seemed poised to overturn the old order. Peter Lennon was in the thick of things I don’t remember the precise incident that made it clear to me that this time, this particular turmoil was […]
Janet Smith Anand Naidoo spent his last night on a recent trip home to Johannesburg strolling famously through his old haunt, the SABC. He went to see his mentor Chris Gibbons presenting News Hour on SABC3, and came away impressed – and not a little nostalgic. News Hour is, after all, not quite the same […]
Paul Wilson FA Cup Final If Arsenal against Newcastle United has the ring of a real cup final about it, for all the traditional reasons, then it is also a final in which neutral viewers would traditionally have known which side to support. But if a week is a long time in politics, a couple […]
Ferial Haffajee One of the biggest problems with solving unemployment in South Africa is that the government does not know the scale of the crisis. Politicians and statisticians bicker about the real picture. Unemployment has not been costed to understand its impact on the bottom line. Neither have calculations been made to assess how people […]