MONDAY, 11.00AM MARKET analysts believe European Commission approval is imminent for Johannesburg Consolidated Investments’ purchase of Anglo American’s 26,8% stake in multinational Lonrho, after JCI chairman Mzi Khumalo met EC representatives last week to discuss the takeover. Meanwhile, on Friday Khumalo announced JCI’s disposal of its 8,7% stake in British company Johnson Mathey to SBC […]
FRIDAY, 3.00PM: A FORMER engineer at Namibia’s Rossing mine has won a breakthrough compensation case in the House of Lords after a three-year legal battle. Edward Connelly lost his ability to speak to throat cancer, which he blames on working on ore crushers that spewed radioactive uranium and quartz dust. The dispute before the House […]
Arthur Goldstuck Network of agonies WEB FEET does not usually act as a letters column. Sometimes, however, a voice that rings out in the wilderness of the Web sums up the dilemmas of the masses of Web users so succinctly, that it serves as a signpost to the kind of questions this column should be […]
BRENDA ATKINSON reviews three important exhibitions, by Jo Ractliffe, Terry Kurgan and Abrie Fourie, currently on show in Gauteng IN one of her poems, Margaret Atwood writes, “the true story lies among the other stories”. Two solo shows at the Goodman Gallery meet between the lines of this statement, their deceptive softness couching the truth, […]
educates … is illegal Focus on drugs: Be it dagga or cocaine, from KwaZulu-Natal to Colombia the only way poor rural communities survive is by growing illegal crops Eddie Koch and Enoch Mthembu THE lives of three people who live in different places along the banks of the Tugela, a majestic river that dissects some […]
NATAL SERIAL KILLER POLICE have discovered 18 bodies buried in shallow graves in Phoenix, north of Durban. Five bodies were discovered yesterday, one of which appeared to be a young black women probably murdered this week. Another three bodies were discovered at a nearby cemetery on Monday. Police have warned that the killer, who preys […]
Thanks to Charles Taylor and Nigeria’s `peacemakers’, the election could herald a gangster state in Liberia, argues Stephen Ellis LIBERIA has had its first presidential election since the massively rigged 1985 poll, which many Liberians see as a main cause of the war which lasted from 1989 to earlier this year. The fighting may now […]
Two Mail & Guardian reviewers offer differing opinions on the black consciousness `conceptual concert’ The Biko Project * Bongani Ndodana AFRICAN-American bass Kevin Maynor has put together this meditation on black consciousness, interweaving spirituals, new compositions, poetry and extracts from speeches made by black visionaries like Paul Robeson, Malcolm X and Steve Biko. The recital, […]
FRIDAY, 3.00PM THE Organisation of African Unity has fired former Zimbabwean president Canaan Banana, who is facing a series of sex-crimes charges, from his job as special peace envoy to Liberia, the Zimbabwean Financial Gazette reported on Friday. The magazine quoted OAU secretary general Salim Ahmed Salim as saying “there is no more role for […]
Cycling:William Fotheringham THE young German Jan Ullrich has shown such power and assurance in the Pyrenean stages of the Tour de France that he is unlikely to be threatened by his Danish team-mate, last year’s winner Bjarne Riis. Ullrich’s rise has been spectacularly fast. Last year he won the final time-trial stage and finished second […]
In her letters – auctioned this month by Sotheby’s – the late Patricia Highsmith is revealed as a tough, sometimes bigoted woman, writes Sarah Boseley CRIME novelist Patricia Highsmith was a semi-recluse from about 1970. She was very private in her Swiss home, having settled in Europe, which loved her amoral heroes whose escape from […]
Springbok coach Carel du Plessis is rightly looking ahead to the 1999 World Cup, but this seems to have blinded him to the needs of winning Tests in the present Tri-nations series RUGBY:Steve Morris THERE are any number of questions to be answered in the wake of the 35-32 defeat of the Springboks at the […]
FRIDAY, 11.00AM ANGLO American Corporation’s gold division saw its mines producing a solid aggregate performenace in the June quarter, with production slightly up and capital expenditure on new projects up 16%. Despite the difficult conditions in the gold market, group aggregate taxed profit was up to R396-million from R357-million in the March quarter. However, available […]
FINE ART: Hazel Friedman The good folk of Bellville are in such a froth over a controversial art exhibition recently on display in the suburb’s public library that they have caused it to close prematurely. The show gave rise to cries of blasphemy and pornography because it featured – among other “obscenities” – penises and […]
ATHLETICS: Julian Drew DESPITE all the criticism which has been levelled at Okkert Brits for failing to deliver when it really counts, he still remains South Africa’s best chance for a gold medal at the world athletics champ- ionships which begin in Athens next week. And with the legendary Czar of the Vault Sergei Bubka […]
Lucy Jones DOCTORS in Baley, a small gold mining town in the Russian far eastern region of Chita, had long been puzzled by the high incidence of babies born without limbs, bald children and adults with abnormally big heads. They guessed such deformities might be related to the nameless mine, located on Baley’s outskirts, where […]
Paul Blustein A TOP official of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) believes Thailand must quickly shore up its troubled financial system and cut government spending to defuse an economic crisis that has shaken currency and stock markets across three continents. Stanley Fischer, the IMF’s deputy director, this week suggested that Thailand is behaving foolishly by […]
FRIDAY, 8.00AM THE Pretoria High Court last night granted an interdict agains the Mail & Guardian preventing it from the publishing the name of a middle eastern country with which Denel is negotiating an arms deal. Earlier in the day, the paper had refused to comply with a demand from Denel’s attorney’s that it sign […]
Wonder Hlongwa POLICE investigating the execution-style murder of five African National Congress members in a KwaZulu-Natal township this week face the grim reality that their early leads point to complicity by their own officers. The five victims, including two newly- elected ANC officials, were shot dead on Tuesday night in Isimozomeni, a township near Richmond […]
Double standards: The British government has proposed changing the laws on sex between men under 18. Back home in South Africa, the anomalies remain unchanged Zackie Achmat THE unequal age of sexual consent in South Africa (16 for hetero-sexuals, 19 for lesbian and gay youths) places unjust, irrational and arbitrary burdens on lesbian and gay […]
paternity test Anthony Kunda in Lusaka THE Zambian Supreme Court has rejected an application to have President Frederick Chiluba subjected to a DNA test to prove conclusively whether a Congolese national, Luka Chabala Kafupi, is his biological father – thus making him ineligible to be state president. The application, by petitioners representing opposition parties, was […]
THE Mail & Guardian still offers you the best newspaper value for your money and from August 8 will be launching an exciting new state of the art culture and entertainment section, Friday. It will be the ultimate guide to culture, lifestyles and the arts and having a good time on the weekend, with full […]
FRIDAY, 11.00AM RANDGOLD-managed East Rand Proprietary Mine is is on the brink of closure as the falling gold price and lower than expected gold yields push the embattled producer to its knees. The mine, once one of the largest and most profitable in the world, currently employs 4 500 people. Although ERPM is managed by […]
Where the big mining houses have steered clear of Liberia, Amalia has taken on the challenge, reports Madeleine Wackernagel AMALIA took a considerable risk when it signed up to develop Liberia’s mineral resources last month. Mining juniors have lost their appeal in the aftermath of the Bre-X debacle and the country’s recent political history did […]
ANGLO AMERICAN’S new mining business division has been actively exploring potential projects in East Africa for the past two years, and this week the mining giant announced a tie-up with a Canadian junior, Sutton Resources, to take a majority stake in the Kabanga nickel-cobalt project in Tanzania. The mine is in the far west of […]
Joe Seremane, whose brother was killed by the ANC in the infamous Quatro camp, is determined to discover the truth behind his murder. Peta Thornycroft reports AN African National Congress leader accused of torturing the brother of chief land claims commissioner Joe Seremane in the infamous Quatro detention camp has been identified as Gabriel Mthunzi […]
PETA THORNEYCROFT spoke to SABC refugee John Maytham about his departure and future plans JOHN MAYTHAM anchored his last national news programme for SAfm on Friday. From his national microphone at AM Live in Johannesburg he is opting for second best and going down to the provinces. And he isn’t even emigrating south “to escape […]
WITH less than two years to go before South Africa’s second democratic elections, the murder of five African National Congress members including two elected councillors in Richmond is a threat to more than just peace in the Natal Midlands. It is proof that sinister forces bent on subverting democracy are still active in South Africa, […]
Gustav Thiel HENNIE MARAIS, Western Cape director of the South African Narcotics Bureau, is resigned to his officers doing little more than watching the drugs coming into the city, and occasionally checking the flow. They no longer bother with dagga, or even with releasing information about their successes in drug convictions. “There are 100 000 […]
Kwame Dawes SALT by Earl Lovelace (Persea, R107) IT has been over 10 years since Earl Lovelace published his last novel, The Wine of Astonishment, so it is wonderful that Salt has been honoured with the Commonwealth Prize. It is his most assured work to date, and it allows him to display his remarkable capacity […]
Jungle music is finally gaining the recognition it deserves in South Africa. GREG BOWES looks at some of the places and faces it’s touched JO’BURG’S hippest live music venue, 206, jumps to the voodoo beats every Tuesday night. The city’s trendiest nightclub, Krypton, has also been doing its bit for new dance culture on Wednesdays. […]
Focus on drugs: The police don’t bother with dagga; they can’t even cope with the trade in hard drugs Franco Fracassi and Laura Evans FOR the people who run South Africa’s burgeoning drugs trade, the forces of law and order represent, at best, a slight inconvenience. In Johannesburg, Cape Town or Durban, the story is […]