Joshua Amupadhi The University of the Orange Free State (UOFS) has at last admitted there may be racial tensions on its campus and has agreed to investigate the causes of campus violence last week — which university authorities earlier dismissed as the result of drunkenness. UOFS Dean of Students Professor Teuns Verschoor said both black […]
RUGBY: Jon Swift THROUGHOUT the tragically under-promoted Student Rugby World Cup which came and went with barely a ripple over the past month, there was the feeling that this was a shop window of one of South African sport’s biggest failings … the big things we do well, in the lesser concerns we do dismally. […]
The Western Cape ANC is under pressure to abandon an unwritten rule that its chairperson be coloured, Rehana Rossouw reports SENIOR sources in the Western Cape ANC say a major shake-up is required if the party expects to challenge the National Party in 1999 for control of the province. Following their crushing defeat in urban […]
A TRICKLE of mourners gathered at the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg this week to pay their final respects to Peta Teanet, the king of Shangaan disco who was killed on July 13. Apart from Mzwakhe Mbuli who acted as master of ceremonies, there were few high-profile artists to honour their slain colleague, and no […]
Among Beatrice’s conundrums is how she came to live in a pigsty. She can put all the elements together. War. Persecution. Genocide. Survival. Even a victory of sorts. But the way things have worked out just don’t make sense to the forlorn Rwandan Tutsi who believes her life is over although she is only in […]
Mail & Guardian Reporters THE Constitutional Court this week cleared a hurdle which barred potential amnesty applicants from confessing their crimes. The court on Thursday shot down a bid by families of leading apartheid victims to have sections of the National Unity and Reconciliation Act — which robs victims of their right to civil and […]
Leading into the the last round of a major tournament is one of the greatest tests of nerves, especially if it’s the British Open GOLF: Mark Lamport-Stokes AMERICAN golfer Mike Reid, on leading the 1989 US PGA going into the decisive fourth round, expressed a common human reaction to the pressure-cooker situation in which he […]
The first thing the Inkatha Freedom Party will have to do when its national conference opens in Ulundi this Friday is try to solve the vicious power struggles within its own ranks. The frequent internecine battles have shattered the party’s public image and diminished its hopes of becoming a potent political force. The recent fiefdom-building […]
Max Mosselson AS a disinterested observer it seems that the recent “acid-burn case”, as it has come to be known, has four important repercussions for the South African legal system, apart from the individual participants in the drama. As any legal practitioner with experience in the field will confirm, there is an almost total blanket […]
SOCCER: Andrew Muchineripi THE final whistle will be blown on the Coca-Cola Challenge Cup this Sunday when Sundowns host Orlando Pirates at the Israeli-designed Odi Stadium north- west of Pretoria. Pirates enter the match needing an eight-goal victory to overtake arch-rivals Kaizer Chiefs on goal difference while success for Sundowns would lift them above Wits […]
Mozambique’s national airline (LAM), which is to be restructured as part of the country’s economic reform programme, is facing a crisis. Not only is it bedevilled by a drop in demand and maladministration but it is also facing stiff competition from neighbouring South Africa. Since its formation in 1980, following the demise of the Portuguese […]
TO Freddy Nyathela, the road travelled by local black music technicians is less a road than an obstacle course. Founder and head of Sara (South African Roadies Association), a union established in 1992 for technical crews from disadvantaged communities, Nyathela has taken on the Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, the Standard Bank National […]
Now that the politicians are talking peace and the police are collecting the weapons of war, KwaZulu- Natal’s inyangas say it’s time to mix a new muti to cleanse the warriors of the blood of their victims. Uhlambo (peace medicine) is set to replace intelezi (war medicine) as the most popular product on the traditional-medicine […]
A group of black farmworkers and a few tough white boers in khaki have worked together to turn their farm into a record-producing money-spinner, reports Eddie Koch The Lomati Valley, a fertile piece of subtropical bushveld that lies in the shadow of the Lebombo Mountains in Mpumalanga, has produced some of the hardiest of South […]
Thandi Lewin For the first time in decades, the University of Cape Town is without an elected students representative council (SRC). Less than 25% of students turned out to vote at the last poll, which, according to the constitution, is not enough to form an SRC, and now new elections must be held next month. […]
The world has learnt some sobering lessons about intervention in civil conflicts in the past few years. The United States experience in Somalia led to a consensus that it was foolhardy for an international power to intervene when the political groundwork had not been done beforehand. Peacekeeping could only work when the parties wanted a […]
delivery Tebello Radebe Private developers look set to be next in line for criticism over slow housing delivery. So far, the government and the banks have borne the brunt of most of the attacks. A report by the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), the focus of a housing workshop in Johannesburg next week, recommends that […]
Nine murders, five attempted murders — that’s this year’s toll in Jo’burg’s roughest `hood. Angella Johnson visited Westbury this week JOEWA BOTHA leaned nonchalantly against the graffitied wall. He knows the risk of standing on a street corner — a target for drive-by gang shooting. “Look!”, he said, as he pointed excitedly at pock-marked plaster. […]
OLYMPIC athletes looking to work off the effects of too many steroids had better watch out: they could run foul of some bizarre laws dating back to the days of Scarlett O’Hara which were designed to keep Southern morality intact. Oral sex carries a possible life prison sentence in the state of Georgia. There are […]
Marion Edmunds IT’S being called the Group Areas Act for immigrants. Foreigners who acquire permanent residence status in the new South Africa will not be allowed to move home from one province to another for a year after their application is approved. Nor will they be able to change jobs without permission from the Home […]
Human rights abusers are staying away from the truth commission — and the attorneys general are being blamed, reports Stefaans BrUmmer THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been left in the lurch by those it needs most to solve the mysteries of the past — human rights abusers — and attorneys general are being blamed […]
Eddie Koch South Africa’s first legal dagga plot — an experimental project near Rustenburg in the North West province — has just completed pioneering research which could provide farmers with a lucrative new cash crop. The Tobacco and Cotton Research Institute (TCRI) recently produced a report on a two-year research project aimed at developing a […]
Alliances are unlikely to make opposition parties more powerful against the ANC, writes a sceptical Marion Edmunds Opposition parties have begun flirting with each other in the post-election political lull, in an attempt to find common ground and sharper definition against the ANC, before the1999 ballot. And while meetings between political parties lead to speculation […]
Chris McGreal in Kigali Burundi’s beleaguered Hutu president, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, has sought refuge at the United States ambassador’s residence in the capital, Bujumbura, and appears ready to relinquish office amid fears that he could become the third successive leader of his country to be assassinated. The overwhelmingly Tutsi army denied this week that there had […]
The Media Monitoring Project has charged that the media industry is understaffed, under-resourced, and not critical enough of the government, writes Jacquie Golding-Duffy MEDIA coverage of the government is more positive than negative, reports an independent monitoring group. The report, in which the Media Monitoring Project (MMP) considered print and broadcast media between April and […]
Eddie Koch The Post Office, the institution which once symbolised bureaucratic incompetence, could be converted into a rural bank which will stimulate a thriving small-farm economy in the countryside. The lack of banking services in the platteland — along with soaring levels of rural crime — is fast becoming a major block to the government’s […]
Richard III, on circuit this week, was sent into the world as a play. Ian McKellen talks to MARK LAWSON about bringing the killer king to cinema IT is a depressing fact that most of the best comic anecdotes turn out to be false. European movie fans last year enjoyed smugly chortling at the story […]
Lynda Loxton A leading member of the South African Communist Party has called on the government to take tough action to stop the “investment strike” by the private sector. African National Congress MP and SACP central executive committee member Philip Dexter told the Mail & Guardian that business seemed intent on pitting members of the […]
Justin Pearce SOUTH African Airways’ sponsorship of the Olympic team’s trip to Atlanta cost about R25-million, the Mail & Guardian has learned. SAA spokesman Leon Els would not comment on the sum involved, but said the sponsorship money came from SAA’s promotions budget and was part of a broader business plan. SAA has recently been […]
SWIMMER Penny Heyns has shown the way for the South African team with two gold medals for the 100m and 200m butterfly evets. Marianne Kriel also finished among the medals with a bronze in the 100m backstroke. Now it’s the turn of the athletes and none has a better chance than 800m sensation Hezekial Sepeng. […]
Cindy Shiner in Obuasi, Ghana JUST beyond the yellow “no trespassing” sign, a burly fellow who calls himself “Jangu-man” stood ankle-deep in chemical-laced black muck. He scooped some into a wooden gutter with a dented old army helmet and washed it, letting promising particles gather into a porous brown cloth. Quicksand-like pits have claimed the […]
Mail & Guardian Reporter THE legal profession is showing signs of becoming caught up in the stampede for transparency and openness. The Transvaal Law Society — which like all provincial law societies is currently trying to vault several bureaucratic hurdles to modernise its name — is planning to ask its members in November to vote […]