Staff Reporter

The planned World Bank loan does not signal a departure from government policy, the trade minister tells Madeleine Wackernagel TRADE and Industry Minister Alec Erwin this week dismissed suggestions that the proposed $70-million World Bank loan signalled a deviation from stated government policy. “This is not a new borrowing initiative. We have set borrowing limits […]

An archaeological find that takes us back to our roots 3,5-million years ago is disappearing. But a Cape Town engineer has used a unique method to capture it for the future, writes Lesley Cowling MORE than 3,5-million years ago, three of our ancestors wandered north across the Tanzanian grasslands, following traditional game trails. Like the […]

Rehana Roussouw BANISHMENT to the Clanwilliam Magistrate’s Court kitchen has not dissuaded prosecutor Jonas White from mobilising his community against crime. Since mid-August, White has been stripped of his office and his duties and forced to spend every working day in the kitchen. The University of the Western Cape-trained lawyer, who has been a prosecutor […]

Robin Wright in Luanda UNITED STATES Secretary of State Warren Christopher flew into this war-ravaged capital this week to try to jump-start the process to end one of the world’s deadliest conflicts. But the visit from the highest-ranking US official since Angola became independent in 1975 was marred by the non-appearance of Jonas Savimbi, leader […]

Rehana Rossouw THE massive manhunt and successful capture this week of Dawid “Doggy Dog” Ruiters, suspected of killing five people in Nieuwoudtville, has focused national attention on crime in the Cape’s rural communities. Ruiters’s capture followed the murder of two women and a four-year-old child in Niewoudtville in the Northern Cape last month. For months, […]

The complacency of the Japanese TV industry has been shattered by the arrival of American media mogul Rupert Murdoch, writes John Watts in Tokyo IN the aftermath of Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of a big stake in a Japanese terrestrial television station, the country’s media establishment is trying to come to terms with the presence of […]

Bennie Bunsee THAT the Pan Africanist Congress has been going through a trying time is well known. But the M&G’s response to the PAC’s recent convention (“PAC convention achieves little,” September 27 to October 3) misunderstands a genuine attempt to correct the organisation’s problems arising from decades of leadership mismanagement. Getting the PAC right will […]

Mail & Guardian Reporter KLAUS VON LIERES UND WILKAU has apparently discovered the Durban air to be a miracle cure. With the legal spotlight on former defence minister Magnus Malan’s acquittal in Durban, little attention was paid this week to the defence team’s most famous member. The former attorney general of the Witwatersrand emerged fighting […]

At the Sacob conference, a German industrialist warned South Africa against consensus-building policies, writes Max Gebhardt FOREIGN businessmen, discussing this week’s South African Chamber of Business (Sacob) annual convention at the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park, expressed surprise that “big wigs” from Europe were giving South Africa lessons on how to become a winning […]

Mark Gleeson looks at the mythical potential of Zaire, who play Bafana Bafana in a World Cup qualifying match next month ZAIRE’S soccer team is as elusive, enigmatic and potentially dangerous as the animal they claim as their mascot. The Leopards will be in town on November 9 to play South Africa at Soccer City […]

Rehana Rossouw THEY’VE been labelled reactionaries, racists and gravy-train wannabes, but the group of former United Democratic Front activists, church leaders, youth leaders and unionists behind the “December 1 Movement” believes the political salvation of coloureds lies in their hands. They are gathering in Cape Town this weekend to fine-tune plans for their launch, the […]

After the Francois Pienaar debacle Springbok coach Andre Markgraaff has been dubbed `Saddam Hussein’ by the players, and it’s not just because they both have moustaches RUGBY:Jon Swift IN examining the Francois Pienaar debacle it must be understood at the outset that South African rugby is, and always has been, reliant on the FU factor. […]

A SERIES of speeches in the past week has encapsulated the debate over the role of the media in this country’s transformation. The Reverend Frank Chikane, addressing a forum of 60 editors from around the Commonwealth, was quick to say he was not speaking on behalf of the deputy president’s office, where he is a […]

Radio listeners will have much more choice after the second wave of licence applications, reports Jacquie Golding-Duffy IMAGINE a radio station solely dedicated to sport coverage or jazz or classical music. Imagine tuning in your radio and discovering a station which broadcasts only horse racing or predominantly local music by African artists. Strange as these […]

Suzy Bell THE Durban Centre for Photography (DCP) at the Bat Centre on Durban’s waterfront is under threat of closure by the end of the month if funds cannot be secured. Local photographers have reacted to the news with outrage. The centre has been open for one year, offering monthly photographic exhibitions and courses. It […]

T HERE is something ironic about the fact that the first census to be conducted in the new South Africa – a society born out of a commitment to end racial discrimination – should include a question about the respondent’s race. No one, of course, is suggesting racial categorisation in this instance is motivated by […]

Joshua Amupadhi and Mungo Soggot EVIDENCE that Gold Fields’s racial classification of workers could have contributed to the promotion of slaughter at the company’s mines has emerged at the Myburgh Commission of Inquiry. The evidence, which showed that the company identified workers’ ethnic backgrounds on their clock-in cards, followed a startlingly frank account of the […]

National museums fear the axe following a financial survey by government consultants, writes Marion Edmunds GOVERNMENT consultants have proposed closing down a number of national museums, including the War Museum of the Boer Republics, the Afrikaanse Taalmuseum in Paarl, and the William Fehr Collection in the Castle in Cape Town, to make way for two […]

Absa may have jeopardised its case against Bob Aldworth, following the disclosure that the bank’s counsel helped frame the charge sheet, report Mungo Soggot and Andy Duffy THE Amalgamated Bank of South Africa’s (Absa) legal battle with Bob Aldworth has taken a startling twist, with the disclosure that counsel acting for the bank helped frame […]

Max Gebhardt AN appeal was lodged on Thursday with the Publications Appeal Board in Pretoria against the controversial banning of the movie Kids. In his submission to the Appeal Board, Anant Singh, whose Videovision Entertainment owns the South African distribution rights to the film, stated that the banning by the censor board is unconstitutional and […]

Katy Bauer PIGEON racing: boring “hobby” or mystical love story? Belgium’s national sport may fuel the first argument, but it is the second that has real substance. Johan van Deventer, a building contractor from Elandsfontein, enters one of the avaries at the smallholding of friend and fellow pigeon fancier Norman Gruar. “Kom nou. Kom nou […]

Julian Drew THE National Sports Council (NSC) said this week it will investigate allegations of fraud against Athletics South Africa (ASA) which arose during the “rigged contract” scandal exposed by the Mail & Guardian three weeks ago. The allegations concern a fax sent on October 2 by ASA to Tommy Tesnar, the coach of Olympic […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy A GROUND-BREAKING unity meeting is to be held this weekend in Cape Town between the Black Editors’ Forum and the Conference of Editors. A culmination of many months of discussion between the two bodies, the meeting is aimed at establishing a single body for editors, senior journalists and other media players in both […]

Cinema: Derek Malcolm THERE have been plenty of films about the drug culture, almost all of them adopting a moral tone that liberals can conveniently call “responsible”. But there have been none quite like Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, adapted from Irvine Welsh’s novel. The film, like the book and the play, shows the pleasure of drug-taking […]

Equipment that reveals if people have received electric shocks has forced the police to fork out or face the courts, reports Angella Johnson HUNDREDS of thousands of rands have been paid out to victims of police torture in cases settled out of court in Gauteng over the past year, following new forensic initiatives by the […]

IN its ongoing search for innovative solutions to the housing crisis, the Ministry of Housing’s special task team this week proposed new approaches to break the deadlock between financial institutions and developers, which is holding up housing delivery. In a report released this week, it also urged the various arms of the government involved in […]

David Shapshak MEMBERS of a right-wing cabal long involved with Mangosuthu Buthelezi and the Inkatha Freedom Party may now have a say in who is next to rule Britain. Prime Minister John Major, who faces a general election by next year at the latest, is running scared in the face of a challenge from the […]

Mark Tran in New York TED TURNER, the CNN mogul turned Number Two at Time Warner, is bringing his skinflint approach to a company notorious for lavishing perks – from corporate jets to holiday hideaways – on its Hollywood stars. Time Warner’s habit of coddling its artists was assiduously cultivated by Steve Ross, the company’s […]

Paul Murphy and Patrick Donovan in London GOLDMAN SACHS, one of the world’s most powerful investment banks, has been secretly “unwinding” the huge holdings of copper owned by Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation in the wake of this year’s market-rigging scandal on the London Metal Exchange (LME). The American bank was handed in June what is perhaps […]

While the road ahead is long and hard, Burundi’s Tutsi and Hutu leaders have at last agreed to talk of peace. Chris McGreal reports form Arusha BURUNDI’S Tutsi military leader has bowed to regional sanctions and agreed to unconditional negotiations with Hutu rebels. But a weekend summit of East African presidents remained suspicious of Major […]

Lesley Cowling LAST week saw the unusual (though gentlemanly) spectacle of South Africa’s science councils justifying their work and its relevance to the country in open hearings. The hearings are unlikely to have a significant effect on the councils’ budgets for the 1997/1998 financial year, but the process marks the beginning of a new role […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy A THREE-PART documentary on transformation at the South African Broadcasting Corporation – Going Live! – was pulled off the air at the last minute by the corporation’s management, who offered no explanation to executive producers Shane Mohabier and Saths Cooper. Ironically the documentary, which was due to be aired on SABC 1 on […]