Barbara Ludman They pour out of matric by the thousands: bright young women, a world of opportunity at their feet. At university, they can follow any course open to their male counterparts. But, invariably, most choose to train for the same low-paying, stress- inducing professions women have gone into for decades: education, social work, nursing […]
FRIDAY, 9.20AM: NAMIBIA’S Frankie Fredericks advanced to the finals of the 200m at the World Athletics Championships in Athens on Thursday. Fredericks finished second and clocked in 20,39sec, behind Ato Boldon of Trinidad and Tobago, who clocked in 20,09sec. Fredericks, who has been suffering from an injury throughout the Championships, refused to comment after the […]
Chris McGreal on the Belgian who embraced Rwanda’s extremists Georges Ruggiu is a mystery even to those who savoured his excited, foreign accent invoking Robespierre to keep the blood flowing across Rwanda. The 37-year-old Belgian is the only non-Rwandan arrested by the International Tribunal for complicity in the 1994 genocide of hundreds of thousands of […]
FRIDAY, 5.00PM: OUSTED Zairean dictator Mobutu sese Seko is welcome to return home, Democratic Republic of Congo Foreign Minister Bizima Karaha, on a visit to SA, said on Friday. Mobutu is receiving treatment for prostate cancer in Morocco, where he fled days after being deposed. The Moroccans are uncomfortable with his presence and have insisted […]
FRIDAY, 11.30AM: IT has emerged that US-based Dow chemical Company mopped up batches of Sentrachem shares on the open market before announcing its offer this week to buy the local chemicals group for R10,50 a share. It is also believed that SBC Warburg, which is advising Dow on the deal, brokered a sale of 2,3-million […]
More money has been spent, more foreign players have been bought. Amy Lawrence gives the A to Z of the new English Premier League season A is for Ales. Krizan that is, of Slovenia. The Stg 500 000 defender from Maribor Branik, his Barnsley team-mate Macedonian Georgi Hristov, and Chelsea’s Uruguayan Gustavo Poyet, will be […]
Education’s poor relations need a massive financial boost, writes Ann Eveleth The government will have to find an extra R3-billion a year over the next decade to end educational backlogs and equalise conditions between poor and rich schools, according to an economic adviser to the national Department of Education. Luis Crouch said the department still […]
FRIDAY, 5.00PM TREVOR TUTU, the son of truth commission chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was on Friday arrested by members of the Soweto Fraud Unit at his home in Randburg north of Johannesburg. Police said Tutu was arrested on the strength of an arrest warrant issued against him for contempt of court arising from his failure […]
Sechaba ka’Nkosi on Cosatu’s September Commission report A long-awaited report on strategy for the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) threatens setting up a new left- wing opposition movement – if the African National Congress does not return to its socialist roots. The document, leaked to the Mail & Guardian, warns that if the […]
their leaders Beata Lipman It’s a funny old world. There we are, interviewing Jessie Duarte, Minister of Safety and Security for Gauteng, on rampant police corruption. She sounds off strongly. Then we interview a guy called Wilfrid Scharf from Cape Town for SABC television and he tells us politicians must do more than talk. After […]
The Mail & Guardian can now back up its claim to be the newspaper with the most sought-after readers in South Africa. Statistics released this week by the All Media Products Survey (Amps) show the M&G has 81 000 readers and nearly half of them are black, with more professionals reading the paper than any […]
Mungo Soggot Advocates at the Johannesburg Bar are smarting after finding themselves at the receiving end of hefty legal fees. The ruling council of South Africa’s biggest Bar has decided to charge its advocate members for an R850 000 high court application to expel one of their colleagues over tax irregularities. The costly high court […]
FRIDAY, 11.00AM TWO of the bidders shortlisted for a 100% stake in parastatal Sun Air have submitted offers for the airline, both of which are believed to fall well short of the R100-million government had hoped to raise by selling the airline. Public Enterprises Minister Stella Sigcau and Transport Minister Mac Maharaj on Thursday announced […]
Wally Mbhele The Eikenhof saga took yet another dramatic twist this week when it emerged that a large portion of the crucial docket has gone missing amid new claims by three more witnesses that they were duped by police into giving false testimony against the accused in court. The latest confessions, including a witness who […]
THE ANGELLA JOHNSON INTERVIEW `You’re not wanting to talk about that driving licence thing, are you?” questioned Ina, the formidable secretary for Baleka Mbete-Kgositsile, when I requested an interview with her boss. “If you are, then I’ll stand six feet tall to protect her. The whole thing has been blown totally out of proportion.” Well, […]
The SABC and M-Net agree – the IBAis incompetent and has no jurisdiction to change the status quo. Peta Thornycroft reports The SABC and pay channel M-Net may be enemies in the ring, but both agree the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) is an incompetent referee. When the IBA begins the final countdown to its proposed […]
A letter of apology to the Mpumalanga premier has turned out to be nothing of the sort, reports Ferial Haffajee After receiving a much-publicised apology, African National Congress Premier Mathews Phosa dropped a threatened defamation action against a fellow veteran who had described being tortured and raped by colleagues in exile. But it now turns […]
Ralph Borland Aerosol-artists Sky One and Kane Seven have given a wild twist to hip-hop art in Cape Town. The two artists have worked together on several pieces over a week-long period, putting up large-scale wall-art pieces in the city itself for the first time. Work like theirs has been mostly restricted to the Cape […]
Geneticists say they can explain why little boys are slugs and little girls are sugar and spice. But Susie Orbach and Joseph Schwartz disagree There is a curious new twist to the latest skirmishes in the genetics and gender debate. After a century of medical theories arguing the essential weakness and inferiority of women, we […]
and justice A dossier that Richard Motasi painstakingly built to prove his assault case did not bring him justice. But it captured the imagination of writer John Miles, who told his story In 1988, author John Miles was given, by Lawyers for Human Rights, a Checkers packet filled with documentation relating to the case of […]
Gwen Ansell If it weren’t for Fela Kuti, we might not have Bayete. Today Afropop is a recognised musical genre; in the late 1960s, it didn’t exist. Two men – Manu Dibangu with Soul Makossa in 1972, and Fela Anikulapo Kuti with the 1970 Fela’s London Scene – pioneered big, jazzy outfits which fused traditional […]
General Paul Kagame tells Mahmood Mamdani that he had to reveal the truth about his army’s involvement in the overthrow of Mobutu Sese Seko The day before I took the Air Rwanda flight from Entebbe to Kigali on July 11, both major dailies in Kampala had carried reports of The Washington Post interview with Rwandan […]
Robert Kirby: Loose cannon There is nothing, and I mean nothing, as singularly bottom-of-the-South-African commercial barrel as any South African airport. We all know how ungracious and self-serving the average South African businessman is. We know how the more pious their mission statements, the meaner the service that can be dredged out of the average […]
FRIDAY, 9.30AM: SPRINGBOKS are planning to upset the All Blacks by winning their Tri-nations match on Saturday despite being written off as no-hopers. Springbok prop Craig Dowd said: “It’s up to us to eliminate the mistakes we made in Johannesburg and Melbourne, and we know we can do it.” But Kiwi star Zinzan Brooke has […]
Slowly, slowly, Brenda Fassie, the original South African pop diva, seems to be finding her feet again. Charl Blignaut joins her in the studio where she’s recording a new album Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that there is no way to write a Brenda interview without its being personal. That’s because […]
FRIDAY, 10.40AM: ZIMBABWEAN and fomer Liverpool goalkeeper Bruce Grobelaar was on Thursady cleared by the jury on a second count of match fixing in Winchester. Also found not guilty are footballers John Fashanu and Hans Segers and Malaysian businessman Heng Suan. The court foreman said that the jury had not yet reached an agreement on […]
Maria McCloy: Miss Soweto 1997 The contestants were the side-show at Miss Soweto: gospel singers Rebecca Malope and Pure Magic, the bass and beats of Ma willies and the freestyle dancing of Mashamplane were the main attractions last Friday at Johannesburg’s Standard Bank Arena. People wandered in and out to buy food and ice-lolly vendors […]
Glynis O’Hara In a bid to boost the local music industry, the Irish and South African governments have joined forces in helping the South African Roadies Association (Sara) get a three-month training course off the ground – apparently the first of its kind in the country. A report compiled by the Irish Agency for Personnel […]
Charlene Smith Former president PW Botha’s new love broke the peace of the conservative Karoo hamlet of Graaff-Reinet when she gave her father a giant condom for his 90th birthday. It emerged this week that Botha (81) – recovered from the death of his wife Elize two months ago – is making plans to marry […]
Janet Smith Anand Naidoo’s final appearance as a news anchor on the SABC will be on August 22, a few weeks before he becomes part of the slick CNN International media machine run by Time Warner chair Gerald Levin and vice- chair Ted Turner. Naidoo leaves his high-visibility post on the English bulletins of the […]
Lucy Hannan in Nairobi Kenyan police are rounding up hundreds of refugees and foreigners after President Daniel arap Moi announced that “foreign spies and criminals” were masquerading as refugees and inciting the people. Buses carrying 129 Burundian, Rwandan, Sudanese and Somali refugees drove under police escort last week to Kakuma camp, more than 800km from […]
Hazel Friedman Today’s trendoids no longer wear their hearts on their sleeves. They’d prefer to sport a logo or two: on their sleeves, around their wrists, even on their jocks. Once upon a time a name was like a coat of arms – an emblem of exclusivity. But no longer is the logo the obligatory […]