Staff Reporter

The indictment of the Malan 20 by Attorney General Tim McNally comes as a small victory to journalists who have fought for the expose of the Caprivi 200, write Mail & Guardian By 1995 many South Africans — force-fed over the years with a diet of reports about “third forces”, “covert operations” and “state-sponsored hit […]

The Mail & Guardian and its journalists won a string of awards this year. The English Academy of Southern Africa awarded columnist Bafana Khumalo the Thomas Pringle Award for television reviews. The Kaiser Family Foundation named journalist Pat Sidley Health Writer of the Year. Literary editor Shaun de Waal (left) was runner-up in the Leserskring/Leisure […]

South Africa has 11 official languages, but we need a new language to capture the soul of the new Constitution, writes Etienne MureinikResponding to the just published working draft of the final Constitution, Bafana Khumalo regrets the lack of “phrases that roll easily off the tongue of a voice artist” (Mail & Guardian, December 1, […]

Marion Edmunds looks at how the political parties survived the year and the local This year has proved South African voters prefer the devils they know. Society may be in the throes of social change, but the electorate has hung on doggedly to the politicians it elected on April 27 1994. The local government elections […]

Anton Harber reviews the progress of the new South Africa now that it has grown from babyhood to become a toddler Six hundred days is not an awfully long time. A baby of that age — 20 months — might just be starting to use simple words, and would only recently have started to walk. […]

Wits could take a leaf from UCT’s book on managing transformation, writes Philippa THE embattled vice-chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand must be glancing enviously from his turbulent empire to that picture of tranquillity nestling in Table Mountain’s aprons — the University of Cape Town. As Wits struggles to contain the crisis around accusations […]

Justin Pearce When the Griqua people call for the return of Saartjie Baartman, they are seeking more than a load of human remains. Baartman’s body, preserved in French museums since she died in 1816, has become a symbol for the marginalisation of the Griquas from colonial times until the present day. The Griqua National Conference […]

Orlando Pirates face a hostile reception and an uphill battle against Asec Mimosa in Soccer: Lungile Madywabe ‘THERE will be hell in Ivory Coast,” said Asec Mimosa coach Zare Mamadou after his team drew 2-2 with Orlando Pirates in the first leg of the Champions Cup at the FNB stadium two weeks ago. With these […]

The Mail & Guardian, like other local newspapers, cannot consider itself to be exempt from public analysis, but it is the critical self-consciousness of the new South African state, writes Colin Paisley BRUCE COHEN certainly knows a lot about the problem of media control in this country. His article (Mail & Guardian, December 1 to […]

The attack on the Koeberg plant was carried out by the African National Congress’ “special operations” division, headed by the former South African Communist Party chief, Joe Slovo. The unit carried out the major ANC coups of the liberation struggle, including the attacks on Sasol. Wilkinson’s immediate commander was Rashid Ismail who is now a […]

Two innovative ventures are set to improve the Gauteng public’s art literacy levels, reports HAZEL FRIEDMAN THE perfect instrument for assessing art literacy in Gauteng has, to date, been the microscope. And leading the “no-need-to-know” pack are past city councils whose role in cultural promotion has been so negligible — and misguided — as to […]

Dear Walter, The great debate is upon us. Or at least it is upon me. It descended with great abruptness early in the morning a couple of days ago, when I tottered out of bed and, as is my habit, made my way to the bathroom and the adjoining place to reassure myself as to […]

Chris McGreal THE world has got Nelson Mandela all wrong. You may think of him as the epitome of decency and statesmanship providing a beacon of hope on an unsettled continent. The truth is, he is a bumbling, sex-starved old fool secretly in the pay of the white man. Or, he simply does not know […]

Is education the growth market of the future, asks Karen Harverson Some 60 percent of the Midrand Campus Group, a privately-run learning centre specialising in undergraduate and postgraduate courses, has been bought by listed company, the Housewares Group in a deal worth more than R16-million. The group, through its mail order subsidiary Glomail, first became […]

The new Police Act may make provision for public participation, but the effectiveness of this community policing is questionable in a still white-dominated police force, argues Pule CURRENT debates and discussions around crime and policing in South Africa tend to focus on the inability of the newly-elected democratic government to curb crime and the incompetence […]

Simon Segal Leslie Boyd, new chairman of Business South Africa (BSA), is used to the trenches of business politics. It was he who played no small part in the merger between the then Association of Commerce (Assocom) and the Federated Chamber of Industries (FCI) to form the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob). Boyd, also […]

David Beresford tells the extraordinary story of how a young white South African couple, one a national sportsman, bombed the nuclear The inside story of how the African National Congress made a mockery of atomic security to pull off one of the most dramatic coups of the apartheid struggle — blowing up the Koeberg nuclear […]

Staff at the SABC and Sowetan are accusing their managements of kowtowing to the ANC, report Marion Edmunds and Rehana Rossouw Staff in the newsrooms of both the South African Broadcasting Corporation and Sowetan, the country’s largest daily, charge their independence has been compromised, and accuse management of “meddling” to curry favour with the African […]

Rowan Callaghan Two-year-old Fartoun plays innocently in the doorway of the cavernous room at Angelo hostel just outside Boksburg, indifferent to the omnipresent stench which fouls the air. Her family fled civil war in Somalia, but they feel abandoned in South Africa. The little girl’s mother has left home for the day to see if […]

Chris McGreal The Rwanda war crimes tribunal has issued its first international arrest warrants for eight men accused of genocide and crimes against humanity during the organised extermination of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis last year. The chief prosecutor, South Africa’s Judge Richard Goldstone, declined to name the accused while their arrest is sought in […]

Zola Skweyiya, Minister for Public Services and Administration, in The Mark Gevisser Profile To drive into Transvaal House, where the behemoth Public Services Commission looms over its kingdom of Pretoria, you need to ascend a ramp and go through a security check next to a trash-filled dumpster. The pungent concoction of koptoe security guard and […]

Chris McGreal follows a forlorn dirt track to Oloibiri, where oil was first struck in the Niger Delta 40 years ago ASMALL, rectangular sign on the dirt track into Oloibiri is the sole monument to the crucible of modern Nigeria. “This is Oloibiri, the goose that lays the golden egg. You are welcome,” it says. […]

Contrary to government rationalisations, privatisation is not necessarily in the interests of disadvantaged South Africans, argues Brendan Martin THE price of water was as popular a talking point in the Gdansk birthplace of Polish Solidarity this week as the defeat of the city’s favourite son, Lech Walesa, in the presidential election. Water tariffs have risen […]

Mehlo Mvelase A VISIBLY angry King Goodwill Zwelithini for the first time blamed the Inkatha Freedom Party publicly for violence last weekend — after his brother, Prince Mbousi Zulu, had escaped a hail of bullets fired at his car. Zwelithini’s outburst, during a traditional ceremony in KwaZulu-Natal’s KwaNongoma last Saturday, marks a new low in […]

Sharon Hammond and Hazel Friedman Four years after a high concentration of arsenic was first found in drinking water at Anglovaal’s New Consort gold mine in Barberton, Mpumalanga, the poison is alleged to have claimed its first victim. An investigation into the mine started recently after 2 000 residents were poisoned by drinking water in […]

Cinema: Andrew Worsdale MACHISMO meets facetious jokiness in Robert Rodriguez’ Desperado, the disappointing follow-up to his zany and spirited $7 000 art- house hit, El Mariachi. Antonio (baby-fat) Banderas plays the balladeer who travels with a veritable armoury inside his guitar-case as he proceeds to exact revenge on a druglord in a small Mexican border […]

The dynamics of black participation in corporate South Africa are complex as has been revealed in the past year, writes Meshack As the past year saw political power shifting into largely black hands, 1995 saw gleams of what black economic empowerment may mean. The strident calls, the blinding euphoria and widespread upsurge of ventures covered […]

Justin Arenstein Faced with accusations of corruption in the awarding of school textbook supply contracts, the Mpumalanga Tender Board has dismissed the allegations as a racist attack on the country’s new political leaders. Officials did, however, concede that a criminal investigation was necessary following irregularities during the awarding of four multi-million rand school textbook contracts. […]

Leon Perlman The Internet, introduced to the world by the United States military as a method of ensuring uninterrupted global communication, is providing a benevolent peace dividend — as a unique conduit for international commerce. But while many companies vacillate over whether to commit to the new business paradigm, a new enemy has emerged — […]

IF apartheid has any beneficial heritage for the new society we are trying to create it is an abhorrence of social engineering. That is to say an abhorrence of those like Hendrik Verwoerd who — whether acting out of a sense of moral or intellectual superiority, or on private communications with the Almighty — attempt […]

Vuyo Mvoko Tension between labour and the government broke into the open this week, culminating in a wave of wildcat strikes that hit three parastatals up for privatisation — Autonet, South African Airways, and Telkom. The South African Railways and Harbour Workers’ Union (Sarhwu), which organised the nationwide strikes on Wednesday, warned: “If they (the […]

Karen Harverson The National Occupational and Safety Association (Nosa) may lose the R10-million a year in funding it receives from the Department of Labour next year. Director General of Labour Sipho Pityana, speaking at a press briefing on Tuesday, said it was unlikely that the department would confirm that level of funding to Nosa in […]