Alan Greenspan’s `neutral’ economic report to the US Congress has failed to check the bull run. Indeed, it did the opposite. Tom Petruno reports WE now can safely add the Federal Reserve Board chair to the fastest-growing unofficial association in America: people who believe that if you don’t have something nice to say about the […]
EVIDENCE of the fascination sharks can exert on humans can be found in cyberspace, where a number of sites are dedicated to them. South Africa’s own is, of course, the site of the Natal Sharks Board, at http://goofy.iafrica.com/carch/ (carch being short for Carcharodon, the creatures’ Latin name). The board supplies statistics and research information, as […]
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 […]
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, […]
Stephen Gray SECRET FIRE: THE 1913-14 SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF PAULINE SMITH (University of Natal Press, R99,95) PAULINE SMITH’S pre-war journal demands a sunny corner to curl up with. Labyrinthine, and actually too disorganised to be read continuously, it wants picking at, probing. This is where those marvellous fine-art stories of hers of a decade […]
Barbara Ludman JOSEPH SEREMANE sat with the audience all day on Tuesday during truth commission hearings at the Old Fort, the former prison in Hillbrow. The commission was running well behind schedule, but still Seremane, the chief land claims commissioner, sat hour after hour, a spare, dignified figure, his back barely touching the back of […]
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 […]
I, Goitseone Gordon Moshoeu, generally known in the African National Congress as Godfrey Pule and particularly known amongst members of the MK June 16 Detachment as Grenade, hereby wishes to give an account of the terrible plight that befell Timothy “Chief” Seremane, popularly known as Mahamba amongst both the ANC in general and specifically MK. […]
I, WILLIAM MASHOTANA (MK name Sizwe Ndela), left South Africa on August 13 1976 for political reasons. I stayed a month in Botswana before I left for Tanzania. I arrived in Tanzania in September and that is where I met Timothy Seremane (MK name Kenneth Mahamba) … He was my deputy commander (commissar) in the […]
in Sterkfontein room Mukoni T Ratshitanga A WEST RAND mental patient died after being held overnight in a seclusion room during a recent cold snap. Frank de Kock, a long-term patient at Sterkfontein Hospital, was found next morning suffering from exposure and died hours later of pneumonia. Staff at the hospital are dissatisfied and angry […]
THE Armaments Development and Production Act of 1968, which Denel is using in its court application to gag the media, is due to be repealed by Parliament, reports Rehana Rossouw. Almost completely unnoticed by the media, the Cabinet approved the far-reaching Open Democracy Bill last month. It aims to grant any person the right to […]
FRIDAY, 2.00PM A COURT case in the Thabazimbi Magistarate’s Court in Northern Province on Friday may hold the key to the recent spae of assinations of National Union of Mineworkers officials at Anglo American Planinum Mines in the Northern and North-West provinces. Twenty-two suspects arrested by police in the past fortnight at Amplats’ Amandelbult mine […]
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 […]
FRIDAY, 1.30PM: JOHN MASHEGO , Ashley Roestoff and Michael Scholtz currently share the lead at the Trust Bank Gauteng Classic golf tournament at Randpark golf course in Roodepoort. They lead after scoring 68 in the first round. TRUSTBANK GAUTENG CLASSIC 68 – J Mashego , A Roestoff , M Schultz 69 – D Fichardt, C […]
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 […]
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 […]
SOCCER: Andrew Muchineripi ZIMBABWE stand alone among the leading football teams in Africa as the only one never to reach the biennial Nations Cup finals. This weekend the Warriors have another opportunity to erase 17 years of frustration when they travel to Angola needing a draw to secure a ticket to the tournament in Burkina […]
FRIDAY, 3.30PM The special police investigation team probing this week’s assassination of five African National Congress members, including two newly elected councillors, in Richmond in KwaZulu-Natal, is looking for two Gauteng policemen and one Patrick Skhumbuzo Ndlovu, alias Bob, who they believe can assist with the investigation. Head of the special investigation team Director Bushie […]
ON Wednesday night the Mail & Guardian received a faxed letter from a firm of lawyers in Pretoria representing the arms manufacturer, Denel, which can only be described as impertinent. The letter demanded a “written undertaking” by 10am last Thursday that we would not publish the name of a country with which Denel is negotiating […]
race Lynda Loxton SOUTH AFRICA risks falling behind in the information technology (IT) race if it fails to step up the training and education of IT users and practitioners, according to a new study. University of Cape Townacademics James Hodge and Jonathan Miller say in the latest issue of the university’s Trade and Industry Monitor […]
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 […]
FRIDAY, 3.00PM KENYAN police fired shots in the air four times on Thursday to disperse youths armed with whips and knives who were fighting outside parliament and attacking MPs. In the parliamentary chamber, opposition members accused Nairobi MP Fred Gumo, a member of the ruling Kenya African National Union (Kanu), of organising the “thugs” to […]
MARIA McCLOY reports on an ongoing dispute between sportswear manufacturer Nike and the popular cartoon Doonesbury THE impact of cartoons seems to be stronger than most thought, judging by the reaction of sportswear billion-dollar giant Nike to Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury cartoon strip that runs in newpapers round the world, including the Mail & Guardian. The […]
Grandad is in jail but his boys are still on the terraces in a country which sponsors football hooliganism SOCCER:Amaranta Wright ON a Sunday in the football season the Buenos Aires stadium of the Boca Juniors Club is heaving, but for an empty strip behind the goal, reserved as usual. Suddenly, tearing through the pre-match […]
Christopher Zinn in Sydney THE oldest living plant in the world – a self-propagating Tasmanian holly-like bush – has been estimated by scientists to be more than 43 000 years old. Chief botanist at the Tasmanian parks and wildlife service Stephen Harris said that Lomatia tasmanica, whose common name is King’s Holly, was 30 000 […]
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 […]
Judging by his failure to deliver on past promises, Kenya’s president will no longer find many willing believers, writes Stephen Buckley from Nairobi A SERIES of dramatic moves last week by Kenya’s government gave the appearance that President Daniel arap Moi is backing down in the face of protests for constitutional and other legal reforms. […]
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 […]
Jonathan Freedland in London SO, soon a man will be able to love another man from the day he turns sweet 16 – trouble is, neither will be allowed to have a cigarette afterwards. The British government’s recent dual announcements – one proposing a lowering of the homosexual age of consent to 16, the other […]
FRIDAY, 1.30PM: MICHAU WARRIORS’ case against the Premier Soccer League disciplinary committee was on Wednesday night dismissed after an arbitration hearing in Johannesburg. Warriors’ lodged an appeal against the PSL, after the League committee ruled in favour of AmaZulu earlier this month, awarding them two points from their drawn match against Umtata Bush Bucks. Premier […]
MFANA, the dagga-growing official who works for the Justice Department, highlights the fact that the police are waging an expensive – but losing – battle against the country’s most tenacious industry. Since 1928, the cultivation and use of cannabis has been a criminal offence in South Africa. The legislation was toughened in 1971 when the […]
Chris McGreal in Bukavu, Congo, uncovers new evidence of genocide as mass graves are unearthed around the country SIX villagers led the way up the narrow path off the main road about 15km from Bukavu, on the far-eastern border of the former Zaire. One carried a spade. He knew where he was headed, but the […]