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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
A joint venture between Zamani and Templeton seeks to ensure skills transference in portfolio management, reportsMadeleine Wackernagel BLACK economic empowerment deals in the financial services sector are not unusual, but one involving a foreign company and a purely focused asset management venture is a first. Together, Franklin Templeton Group, via its Templeton arm, and Zamani […]
Ryk Neethling is swimming faster – and making his turns quicker – since he took up a scholarship at an American college SWIMMING: Julian Drew LIKE a long line of South African swimmers before him, Ryk Neethling headed off to America last August on a sports scholarship. But the 19-year-old from Bloemfontein has achieved something […]
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 […]
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 […]
FRIDAY, 8.30AM INVESTIGATORS into the case of army chemical warfare director Brigadier Wouter Basson have reopened investigations into the mysterious 1987 crash of the SAA Boeing 747 jet Helderberg, in which all 159 people aboard perished. An inquiry into the crash ruled out a bomb or explosive device as the cause, but strange aspects of […]
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, 1.30PM: OLYMPIC silver medallist Hezekiel Sepeng won the 800m event at an international meeting at Rheede in Germany on Wednesday and showed he is recovering from the hamstring injury that threatened his participation in the World Championships in Athens next month. Wednesday’s race was a fitness test for Sepeng, who recently underwent intensive physiotherapy […]
THEATRE: Suzy Bell IT’S more likely the word according to Ngema and the gospel, than the word according to Steve Biko, in Mbongeni Ngema’s latest three-hour musical Maria-Maria!.The writer, director and composer claims is South Africa’s first and only full gospel musical. He also says it’s the best musical he’s ever written. Well the disciples […]
The meeting between President Nelson Mandela and East Timorese Nobel peace laureate Jose Ramos-Horta has been shrouded in secrecy.
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 […]
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 […]