Staff Reporter

With police abusing their sick leave to score additional days off, many stations have been left ill-equipped to combat crime, reports Angella Johnson THE South African Police Service (SAPS) is planning a crackdown on widespread abuse of the service’s generous sick leave benefits as part of the efficiency drive announced by national Commissioner George Fivaz. […]

David Bowie has introduced pop investment, but will others follow in his footsteps, asks Neil Spencer The days when David Bowie represented the cutting edge of modern pop may lie back in the Seventies, but the 50-year-old Bowie proved he’s still an innovative force in the business of music when he invented the pop star […]

Mail & Guardian Reporter IT is the end of the road for acid-burn victim Bernadette Gibson following the Appellate Division’s decision last week to spike her petition to appeal a R131000 damages award. Gibson suffered acid burns to her vagina and lower back at the hands of a negligent gynaecologist. But instead of walking away […]

Jane Rosenthal AL DIE WINDRIGTINGS VAN MY WERELD by Rachelle Greeff (Queillerie, R49,99) EK STAMEL EK STERWE by Eben Venter (Queillerie, R49,99) FOR a glimpse of where we are at in the Nineties in the new South Africa, one could do worse than turn to novelists. Two new post-liberation novels, which are already selling well, […]

Peta Thornycroft THE Transvaal attorney general’s office is putting the finishing touches to the case against several police generals who will be arrested and charged in the middle of next month. General “Krappies” Engelbrecht is finally going to be brought to court three years after he was forced to leave the police service, following Judge […]

Suzy Bell A young black child strokes the lilac long nails of “Aurora the Raver”, marvelling at the sight of a flamboyant marionette on exhibition. With purple spiral curls, rainbow coloured eyelashes, bellybutton and nose resplendent with shiny silver rings, it’s no wonder Winnie Mandela (marionette) couldn’t quite compete. In this joint exhibition of KwaZulu-Natal […]

emerges Fay Davids IN the mining industry, the proof of the pudding is in productivity. And in an industry where production hit a 40-year low last year, the story of a newly qualified miner at Gengold’s Beatrix mine is inspiring. In a 24-shift month he achieved a face advance – the rate at which a […]

The resignation of Springbok coach Andre Markgraaff is bound to affect the players, which is good news for South Africa’s opponents in the tough season ahead RUGBY:Jon Swift AS the dust rises in ever thickening clouds to turn whatever hint there was of transparency in South African rugby into an even murkier soup, it is […]

Maria McCloy IF you’re one of the millions of South Africans who tunes in to any of an ever- growing number of music radio stations each day, it’s unlikely that many of the sexy, soothing, lively or witty DJ voices you hear belong to a woman. Or when you get down in the club of […]

fences Caitlin Davies in Maun THE Botswana government looks set to introduce “wildlife-friendly fences” – that control the movement of one species while allowing others to roam free – in the Okavango Delta. Mary Kalikawe, a biologist for the Wildlife Training Institute based in Maun, produced a manual on such fences in 1995. She says […]

Controversial film-maker Larry Clark is coming to SA to promote his film, Kids, reports CHARL BLIGNAUT ‘DAD, I’ve never seen anything like that before.” So said photographer and film- maker Larry Clark’s 12-year-old son after watching the premiere of his photographer father’s debut movie Kids. Hardly surprising, considering Kids is one of the most original […]

An advocate disbarred for cheating is forgiven because of `extraordinary circumstances’ in the closing days of apartheid.Mungo Soggot reports THE Pretoria advocate who was disbarred for cheating former defence minister Magnus Malan by charging him exorbitant legal fees has been reinstated by a trio of Pretoria judges including Transvaal Judge President Frikkie Eloff – the […]

Bongani Ndodana OPERA has long had the unfortunate stigma of being perceived as an inaccessible European holy cow. True, some of its origins can be traced back to the late 16th century in Italy, to a group of learned poets and musicians known as the Florentine Camerata, but it has come a long way since […]

by funding cuts Jim Day THE view from her back door is of acres and acres of corrugated steel roofs, weighted down by cement blocks and broken furniture. Thin columns of smoke rise from fires burning in steel drums. All around her, the streets are teeming with people, cars and a small herd of goats. […]

Hazel Friedman CALL her a big fish voraciously feeding off South Africa’s art plankton. Call her a prophetess and profiteer in one. Call her a superbitch and nurturing matriarch in the same breath. Call her, even, the Mother Teresa of the cultural church. In fact call her virtually anything at all. Just don’t call Linda […]

The universe is bigger and older than first believed, but sci-fi writer JG Ballard sees space as a vacuum New evidence shows that previous assumptions about space were wrong, reports Lesley Cowling A SOUTH AFRICAN astronomer this week presented evidence to international cosmologists that the observable universe is 10% larger than previously supposed. This means […]

Protesting students have accused Njabulo Ndebele of being slow to implement changes on the campus, writes Tangeni Amupadhi THE same forces who proclaimed University of the North Vice-Chancellor Njabulo Ndebele champion of transformation in tertiary education, have turned against him. Ndebele – who lost out in the three-way competition for the top job at Wits […]

Anthony Kunda in Lusaka FREEDOM of speech in Zambia suffered a severe blow with the imprisonment last week of Masautso Phiri, special projects editor of The Post, the country’s only independent daily, and the separate arrest of three journalists for The Chronicle, an independent weekly. Phiri was tried and sentenced by a full bench of […]

Holy hormones! The Preacher’s Wife has Whitney Houston renouncing sex in the bid for sainthood. JOHNATHAN ROMNEY is not happy THERE are many things to respect Whitney Houston for: Like the fact that her song I Will Always Love You is the number one favourite to be played at funerals; or her glacial composure when […]

Zaire’s government and the rebels who have captured a large part of the country have agreed to talk peace in Cape Town, reports Chris McGreal PRESIDENT Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire has agreed to peace talks with the growing rebel army in the east after he secretly despatched a special envoy to seek South African […]

Controversy surrounds the proposed Bill to convert the Development Bank of South Africa into a company, writes Lynda Loxton NEW parliamentary finance committee chairman Sipho Mpahlwa had a baptism of fire this week when the committee once again flexed its muscles and refused to rubber stamp an important Bill. Appointed on February 17, Mpahlwa almost […]

Politicians need to consider the social dynamics behind gun proliferation, argues Wits sociology professor Jacklyn Cock GUN violence is about contested social identities. This is evident in the case of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, the AK-47. I want to use this particular weapon to introduce some of the key themes in a sociological analysis of […]

minutes Rehana Rossouw THE Free State African National Congress member who has launched a court challenge to the organisation’s decision to nominate Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri as premier for the province is still trying to unearth who made the original nomination. The ANC last year successfully challenged Edmund Qhali’s bid for urgent relief in the Free State […]

Newspaper houses are planning to spend close to a million in an attempt to scupper the government’s crackdown on tobacco advertising, reports Jacquie Golding-Duffy MAJOR newspaper houses are planning to spend close to R1-million to fight the government’s crackdown on lucrative tobacco advertising. Documents in the Mail & Guardian’s possession show that nearly half of […]

Gustav Thiel TWICE every Sunday the congregation of the Deo Gloria church gathers in Pretoria to worship. Members of the church prefer not to disclose where they meet, except that it is in another church. They represent many deminations, coming together in the belief that the Bible should be the focus of their worship. What […]

JG Ballard WHAT happened to the Space Age? Its once heroic vision of our planetary future now seems little more than a mirage. Yet in 1957, I remember listening to the radio call-sign of Sputnik 1, relayed on the BBC bulletins, and the sense I had that this was the only news that mattered. As […]

FINE ART: Suzy Bell HOW many white middle class males in their 50s living in a retirement village – “where no-one buys art” – are painting berry- brown, sherry-brown bodies to inspire a sensual dialogue in post-apartheid South Africa? Well, Terrence Patrick is one. This artist does not simply yearn for reconciliation but for a […]

First it was abortion on demand and now it may be death, following the example set by Holland Gustav Thiel THE medical fraternity, still battling with its conscience over the recent advent of legalised abortion in South Africa, will soon have a new medical and ethical dilemma to confront, with the release of proposals to […]

The lineout Steve Tshwete will field in his match with Louis Luyt could include the Receiver of Revenue, reports Stuart Hess SPORTS Minister Steve Tshwete’s special task force will use alleged tax evasion, a charge with criminal implications, as the main thrust of its investigation into rugby supremo Louis Luyt. The Mail & Guardian established […]

NATIONAL Party leader FW de Klerk is juggling the chicken and the egg, and cannot decide between the two. The chicken is the current NP: it clucks about forming a “new new” National Party and scratching for dirt on the African National Congress, particularly in the backyards of the Western Cape, where it struts its […]

The Dolphin Group which has secured huge interests to develop tourism in Mpumalanga is struggling to defend its chief, reports Justin Arenstein THE public relations drive by nature reserve heavyweight Dolphin Group stumbled this week after Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi’s office denied it had issued letters vindicating Dolphin chief Ketan Somaia. The supposed letter […]

Mungo Soggot COLLEAGUES of Professor Sam Nolutshungu, the United States-based academic who turned down the vice-chancellorship at Wits University, say he used the Wits offer to land himself a better job with his current employer. They also say Nolutshungu, who rejected the Wits post at the 11th hour for “health reasons”, is not ill and […]