Staff Reporter

Mungo Soggot and Stuart Hess THE records of Cabinet meetings at which some of the most traumatic events of the period before the 1994 elections were discussed appear to have been gutted and sanitised. The records, released to the Mail & Guardian by the National Archives in Pretoria this week, are written in the style […]

Jim Day A COUPLE of hundred Mozambican children filled the sandy school playground, some lounging in the shade of a shady tree, others practising their Van Damme kickboxing moves, while a small group of student volunteers from South Africa and elsewhere put the finishing touches on their rebuilt school. While one of the volunteers painted […]

Hazel Friedman CONFUSION reigns at the Pact ballet and dance companies as members and mana= gem ent come to terms with their imminent transition from a government-supporte= d d ance company to what they hope to be an independent company – due to the dr= ast ic reduction in state funding. This week, for example, […]

SOCCER:Andrew Muchineripi AS the South African Football Association (Safa) seeks solutions to its man= y p roblems, they could do much worse than phone 643-3341 and ask for Mr Trevor= Ph illips. The chief executive officer of the Premier Soccer League (PSL) may not have= al l the answers to all the questions, but the […]

New York has legalised ‘extreme fighting’, an anything-goes mix of martial = art s. Ian Katz reports=20 ON March 26, Kenny Monday and John Lewis will step into a ring in an as yet= un disclosed Manhattan arena and do their level best to beat the living daylig= hts out of one another. They will […]

Victoria Brittain KOIGI WA WAMWERE, Kenya’s best-known opposition politician, predicts he will die in a stabbing or car crash when he returns to the country to face yet another trial, for an alleged theft of arms from a police station in November 1993. He has served a year of a four-year jail sentence, was temporarily […]

Ghetto Diaries, the award-winning M&G-TV series, starts a new season. ANDRE= W W ORSDALE previews=20 WHEN I was asked to cover the new series of Mail & Guardian Television’s Gh= ett o Diaries I told editorial and filmic staff there was no way I could write = a r eview as an advertorial. I was […]

Greg Bowes BRENDA FASSIE: Now Is The Time (CCP) THE controversial and incontrovertible Ms Brenda Fassie returns clad as the= ar chetypal “girlie” raver. But don’t let that put you off because this album,= wh ile ironically not as dance-oriented as her last (the Arthur-produced Umunt= u =20 Uyathintsha), is still an accomplished outing. While […]

Smoke a mountain-fresh rush HOW does menthol get into menthol cigarettes? – Charlene, Benoni THOSE of you who have suffered head colds or sore throats will be familiar with the mountain-fresh rush of menthol that brings instant relief. In fact, the menthol that is used by the food and pharmaceutical industry is the same as […]

Rehana Rossouw A STELLENBOSCH family facing eviction from the labourers’ cottage they occupied for 50 years won a costly three-month reprieve last weekend when Land Affairs Minister Derek Hanekom stepped in to help them. Hanekom – who is attempting to limit the evictions of rural farmers through new legislation – managed to persuade the farm […]

Charl Blignaut THE Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, Lionel Mtshali, this= we ek finally announced the list of who will be serving on the most powerful a= rts body yet established in post-apartheid South Africa, the National Arts Cou= nci l (NAC). But, while general reaction to the list has been favourable, there= […]

What is reconciliation? Who does it benefit?Antjie Krog probes differing views on the concept THERE was Tom and there was John. Tom lived opposite John. One day, Tom stole John’s bicycle and every day John saw Tom cycling to school on his bicycle. A year later, Tom walked up to John. He stretched out his […]

Caitlin Davies in Maun GOOD rains in Namibia recently have delayed plans to pipe water from the Okavango River down to Windhoek – siphoning it off before it ever reaches the unique Okavango Delta in northern Botswana – but as far as Botswana is concerned, the controversy is not over yet. Though everyone agrees the […]

The ‘spy’ alleged to have known about Chris Hani’s assassination spoke to the M&G this week, reports Stefaans Brmmer MOHAMMED AMIN LAHER, whom the Mail & Guardian identified as the mystery “double agent” who had advance knowledge of Chris Hani’s assassination, this week claimed the death plot had been “a conspiracy on both sides of […]

An NGO which has been involved in drafting a code of ethics for the sector is in the spotlight for other reasons, reports Rehana Rossouw A PRIME mover behind the creation of a code of ethics for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is involved in a bitter dispute with a former employee, which has dragged his organisation […]

We cannot afford to react to the market clamour by lifting exchange controls too quickly, writes Madeleine Wackernagel WITH the recent strengthening of the rand, the issue of lifting exchange controls is once again on the table. Every time the market rumours gain volume, the Reserve Bank rapidly quashes them; this time was no different. […]

Madeleine Wackernagel AFTER the sharp deterioration in October/November, the business confidence ind ex for December/January showed a recovery of one percentage point. The reason, says the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob), which compiles the index, is partly a turnaround in sentiment, thanks to the stronger rand, the prospect of a cut in interest rates, […]

Claudia Braude ‘MANAGING the package” is how truth commissioner Hugh Lewin describes selecting 12 statements from 150 submitted for public hearings in one community. “Which is the story to choose, the story we say you should hear?” he asks. He’s upfront about the process, difficulties and discomfort involved in narrating the role of the Truth […]

TENNIS:Jon Swift IT is well, with the weekend’s Davis Cup World Group tie at Durban’s Westr= idg e Park in view, to keep an eye on the quintessential cornerstone of the Rus= sia n psyche – hardship is not a new phenomenon, it is to be both expected and = end ured. The Russians go […]

MARIA McCLOY talks to Skeem, a bright new South African group who are mixin= g s tyles and doing their own musical thing SKEEM broke on to the local music scene in September last year with the rel= eas e of their song Waar Was Jy? In terms of both lyrics and style they were […]

Jim Day DOCTOR Eva Ngwenya-Seobi points to the tiny male genitals, the little feet and the thumb inserted contentedly in the mouth of the 12-week-old human foetus she keeps in a jar of formaldehyde. It is obvious, she says, that this thumb-sized boy floating in his amniotic sac was a living, kicking person before he […]

Mungo Soggot CRAIG WILLIAMSON, the spy turned media celebrity, was “contemptuous” in his attitude toward the justice system and the truth commission, the Pretoria Supreme Court heard this week. Williamson was appearing in the first round of a case that could become a landmark clash between the truth commission and the justice system. He is […]

Dennis Mair FOR the next two weeks, Gallery Mau Mau in Cape Town shifts focus from the = ost entation of the art world to the thrill of B-schlock, exploitation filmogra= phy and pure horror. Amid projections and popcorn, administrators David L Dei = and Craig E Parker describe the ensemble as “a terrorism of […]

The exhibition at South Africa’s National Gallery in Cape Town offers a spe= ctr um of insights into a troubled decade. JULIA TEAL reports LOOKING at the work presently on display at the South African National Gall= ery , there is an almost tangible sense of the weight that the institution carr= ies as one […]

THE ANGELLA JOHNSON INTERVIEW IF ever you wanted a walking advertisement in support of legalised abortion, take Glenda Bateman. Fifteen years ago, while working in Johannesburg as a student nurse, she fell pregnant after dating a student doctor for just three months. To put it delicately, it seems a too large condom slipped, and bingo! […]

Following the arrest of Dr Wouter Basson, SADF scientists are revealing det= ail s of its covert chemical programme, writes Peta Thornycroft SCIENTISTS involved in the development of chemical weapons by the former So= uth African Defence Force (SADF)have begun talking to authorities, giving deta= ils of the sale of chemical weapons technology to Libya […]

A group of Christian churches has launched a vigorous anti-halaal campaign, reports Jan Raath in Harare A POWERFUL right-wing Christian fundamentalist group in Zimbabwe has launched a campaign against the country’s modest Muslim community to halt what it believes is a “dangerous and violent” religion with its eyes on taking over the government on its […]

If a task team’s recommendations are adopted, the Cabinet will continue to decide behind closed doors to whom the arms industry sells. Marion Edmunds reports THE government plans to keep secret its most sensitive arms sales, such as the recent proposed Syrian arms deal, despite calls for greater transparency. A governmental task team will advise […]

Oliver McCall says God will be in his corner when he fights Lennox Lewis fo= r t he title. He may need him, says Kevin Mitchell HAVING been dropped on his head as a baby, Oliver McCall seems to have been= in a state of almost permanent, thumb-sucking belligerence ever since. This i= s a […]

Glynis O’Hara WHAT do you do when there are two radio stations with substantially the same format, both wanting a slice of the airwaves? Will it be overkill for listeners and too much competition for advertisers? Or should the discipline of the free market be left to sort out who will and who won’t survive? […]

Justin Arenstein AUTOCRATIC management and a failure to consult with affected rural communities is threatening Mpumalanga’s revolutionary attempts to make its conservation areas pay for themselves. It was with the future of its conservation areas in mind that the Mpumalanga Parks Board granted commercial management of its reserves, which are largely undeveloped and which cost […]

A founding editor of the Mail & Guardian, Anton Harber, is leaving the newspaper for radio, writes an M&G Reporter