Staff Reporter

The Financial Mail editorship is up for grabs, but no formal offers have yet been made, reports Mungo Soggot BUSINESS REPORT editor Peter Bruce has emerged as a contender for the editorship of the Financial Mail (FM), which lost Nigel Bruce in the the dramatic takeover of Finance Week by former FM editor at large, […]

Marion Edmunds THEY are called the “Gestapo”. These are not the security police but the men from the Medicines Control Council (MCC) inspectorate who stand accused of raiding and harassing homeopaths and dispensers of natural medicines. And while some homeopaths have sunk into silence for fear of having their businesses closed down, others have started […]

THE United States’s case against Boutros Boutros-Ghali has never been entirely clear. He is said not to have been sufficiently vigorous during his secretary generalship in reforming the United Nations. He is said to have been ineffective in marshalling the world to deal with the succession of particularly searing tragedies that arose during his time […]

Mail & Guardian Reporter TRANSPORT Minister Mac Maharaj kicked off a two-day conference with lawyers and interest groups on the future of state accident insurance designed to fuel debate on the issue by laying down the law and singling out lawyers who had attacked his proposals. In a manner described by attending lawyers as “pretty […]

poachers Eddie Koch IT was the week in which conservationists launched a series of missions to save not the white rhino or an endangered species of whale but thousands of poisonous scorpions, hairy baboon spiders and swimming crabs that were plundered from Mozambique in an effort to smuggle them out of the country through South […]

Rehana Rossouw FAITHFUL members of People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) continued to flock to the organisation’s activities this week, despite an initiative by religious leaders to caution against its militancy. On Wednesday night, more than 1 000 Pagad members marched to a house in Lansdowne, Cape Town, which they claimed was owned by an […]

CINEMA: Derek Malcolm `THE story that follows is about Minnesota. It evokes the abstract landscape of our childhood – a bleak, windswept tundra, resembling Siberia except for its Ford dealerships and Hardee’s restaurants. It aims to be both homey and exotic, and pretends to be true.” So says Ethan Coen, producer and co-writer of Fargo, […]

A short cut for the rough may have made the course easier, but this won’t detract from the victory of whoever ends up first in a quality-packed Million Dollar field GOLF: Jon Swift THERE has always been something very special about the Nedbank Million Dollar Challenge. There is the attraction of watching a select field […]

KEN OWEN accused Cathy O’ Dowd of publishing “unverified rubbish” about the Everest expedition, and concluded “I do hope this is not the journalism taught at Rhodes” (“`Mortal peril’ on Everest,” November 15 to 21). It’s poor journalism to make this comment without giving readers the background that Cathy has been a master’s student and […]

A survey has found that diplomats at 51 out of 71 missions are overpaid – so they’re taking heavy salary cuts, writes Mungo Soggot THE Department of Foreign Affairs has slashed the salaries of South African diplomats – some by as much as 50% – after exploring what it really costs them to live abroad. […]

Media editor Jacquie Golding-Duffy takes exception to being excluded from this week’s tte–tte THE meeting this week between President Nelson Mandela and 22 black journalists, among them prominent and respected black editors, has been labelled “fruitful” by presidential spokesman Parks Mankahlana. It was, he says, a “no-holds-barred” discussion and “at the end of the day […]

For Rwandan Tutsis, the return of Hutu refugees from Zaire is terrifying, reports Dele Olojede in Gisenyi, Rwanda AS he watched thousands of Hutu refugees pour across the border from Zaire, on their way back from self-exile, Jean-Marie Musaidizi seethed with quiet anger. Musaidizi, a survivor of the 1994 genocide, was angry that the people […]

To win the Test series in India South Africa don’t just need `good’ cricketers, they need match winners – and Paul Adams fits that description CRICKET:V Roger Prabasarkar A FANTASTIC gamble – or a simple case of common sense. Paul Adams, on one hand, was asked to join the South African squad in India on […]

Stuart Hess THE South African embassy in Washington this week disputed claims by human rights organisations in South Africa and the United States that 18-year-old Azikiwe Kambule is being mistreated in prison. Kambule is awaiting trial, and is said to face the death penalty, in Mississippi state on a charge of being an accomplice in […]

Gwen Ansell TANANAS WIDE ENSEMBLE: Unamunacua (Gallo/GMP) FOR this, their fifth album, Tananas’s core of guitarist Steve Newman and drummer Ian Herman expands to include more than a dozen jazz and folk colleagues. The difference is dramatic. The spacey, wistful guitar tunes are still there (with reprises of a few old favourites) but the limited […]

Gwen Ansell CLUB-OWNERS and artists aren’t always bosom buddies. And when jazz clubs close, the musicians are often ambivalent mourners, finding it hard to regret the passing of managements that paid them poorly or not at all. But this week it’s the musicians who’ve come together to try to save Melville’s Bass Line, which, with […]

Speculation is growing about a government review of the Independent Development Trust’s status, reports Joshua Amupadhi SOUTH AFRICA’S biggest and richest non- governmental organisation (NGO) has called off a mega relaunch at which President Nelson Mandela was to officiate, adding to speculation that the government is to review its status. The Independent Development Trust (IDT) […]

The contest for a new Free State premier has begun, but is bedevilled by anger and befuddlement, reports Rehana Rossouw NOMINATIONS from branches of the African National Congress for a premier in the Free State close today, but there is still little clarity about who is eligible to stand. Some branches are nominating deposed Premier […]

Joshua Amupadhi traces how the virus was identified by a Johannesburg doctor before it could spread too far `Angel,” the Gabonese doctor who unwittingly brought the Ebola virus to South Africa, flew home on Wednesday. Back in Libreville he is popularly known as the “Angel” because of the lives he saves so regularly at the […]

An increase in poorer students and a decrease in government funding has left universities battling to resolve a cash crisis, writes Andy Duffy THOUSANDS of students could be refused entry to universities next year amid an escalating funding crisis which is forcing institutions to axe staff and courses. Wits, Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Pretoria, Fort Hare […]

Marion Edmunds The Steyn Commission on remuneration of representatives has recommended an 8% real increase on the total package for MPs and members of the Senate, bringing their total annual package to R239 642 from R221 861. Members of the provincial legislatures will have their packages increased by 2% and President Nelson Mandela will have […]

Mark Milner in Sao Paulo PEDRO MALAN does not look like a gambler. Pipe-smoking and bespectacled, he projects the image of the career civil servant he has been for much of his working life. Malan, however, is now Brazil’s minister of finance; a key player in President Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s attempt to wean the country […]

A few years in New York changed Tananas’s drummer Ian Herman. GWEN ANSELL finds out how much THE club is crowded. So crowded, in fact, that the punters can’t get to the toilets and the musicians can’t get to the stage. The bar staff are sprouting extra arms, and the waiters have started a human […]

Desmond Morris, at 68, is still pursuing his provocative studies of the naked ape. He spoke to Andrew Billen in Oxford DR DESMOND MORRIS has made a career out of watching people. He has the eye of a zoologist trained in the tradition of Julian Huxley and Darwin, but he also possesses highly developed showbiz […]

JACQUIE GOLDING-DUFFY has her doubts about a new children’s TV show EITHER you love them or hate them, but Felicia Mabuza-Suttle and Dali Tambo are not going away. Why not? Not because their shows are roaring successes but because they have managed, perhaps unconsciously, to produce the next generation of clones. Jika Jika, the innovative […]

It took a two-year investigation to uncover members of the `Muslim mafia’, reports Angella Johnson THEY called themselves the “Muslim mafia” and bragged openly that they were untouchable because of the number of police officers on their payroll. Then an honest cop found a way to break one of the biggest criminal syndicates operating in […]

John de St Jorre in London AN oil painting which has been missing for 400 years and is attributed to the Italian old master, Caravaggio, could fetch up to 10-million at an auction in London next month. The picture is the property of a private owner. The auctioneers, Phillips, originally attributed the picture in their […]

For many in Goma, Zaire, the arrival of Rwandan rebels means a better life than before, reports Chris McGreal THE first rebel recruiting table was set up outside Goma post office, a building which ceased to serve its original function several years ago when the Zairean government stopped delivering the mail. There were no volunteers […]

SOCCER:Andrew Muchineripi ALTHOUGH many have probably forgotten, it is the Coca Cola Cup final this weekend. The reason that many forget about this cup is that none of the so-called big guns has ever won the trophy, since its inception in 1992, when it was won by AmaZulu. On Saturday Bush Bucks play QwaQwa Stars […]

Judith Edstrom I WOULD like to address some of the perceptions and misconceptions about the World Bank in South Africa that have surfaced recently, at times with a degree of emotional fervour. First, what is the World Bank and what are we doing in South Africa? The World Bank is a co-operative bank owned by […]

Jan Raath in Harare THE word “august” gets its very meaning from the Law Society’s annual dinner. The legal eagles of Zimbabwe gathered in black tie rectitude last Saturday in the Royal Harare Golf Club, with their wives softening the crispness of the occasion. Imagine Chief Justice Ted Gubbay without his shoulder-length horsehair wig, attorney- […]

Plans to restructure many of Gauteng’s hospitals have been delayed following much criticism, reports Andy Duffy THE Gauteng government’s plans to close or downgrade nearly a third of its hospitals have been put on hold, pending further investigation. The provincial health department, which has faced a barrage of criticism, says it is “sympathetic” to calls […]