RUGBY: Jon Swift IT is a measure of the importance of the position that=20 the flyhalf is the most exposed and often most=20 criticised of players in the game of rugby. Just how the flyhalf slots into the complex 15-part=20 puzzle which makes up a successful team is a poser which=20 faces every coach at […]
Charges of plagiarism are being levelled against renowned South African writer and educationist Mbulelo Mzamane. Philippa Garson reports THE credibility of renowned South African writer and educationist Mbulelo Mzamane has been called into question, with evidence surfacing that he plagiarised extracts of the work of another famous writer and journalist, Joseph Lelyveld, now editor of […]
Rehana Rossouw A senior member of the Cape Technikon staff has been suspended following allegations of massive fraud on the An internal investigation has been launched into allegations that senior members of staff had established private colleges where they purported that Cape Technikon accreditation had been granted for courses offered there. The head of the […]
Gilding the lily THE Sphinx will be undergoing a facelift, according to Egyptian antiquities officials. Plans are to remove layers of cement poured over the massive 4 600-year-old structure in an earlier restoration and replace them with limestone. Fouling the air The National Health Service in Britain said this week that with more than two-million […]
Eddie Koch A community newspaper that became the scourge of Colesberg when it published exposes of racism, corruption and third force actions in the small Karoo town during the early 1990s is alive and well — at a time when most “alternative” media projects in South Africa have shut down. The Toverberg Indaba was launched […]
Ballroom dance is taking root from Elsies River to=20 Mmabatho, discovered JUSTIN PEARCE at Sun City last=20 SOMEHOW, it could only have happened at Sun City. You=20 know you’ve arrived there when the plastic bags flapping=20 on fences give way to coloured flags flapping on poles,=20 and inside the dimly lit halls of the Superbowl […]
Traditional doctors are coining it as the black business sector mushrooms, report Meshack Mabogoane and Eddie Koch The growth of black business in South Africa has reinforced another thriving economy — the informal sangoma and muti trade — as new entrepreneurs and executives resort to the supernatural for luck and to protect their cars, taxis, […]
Deputy Agriculture Minister Thoko Msane Boldly Thoko where no woman … When Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964, Police Minister Sydney Mufamadi and Labour Minister Tito Mboweni were just beginning primary school. Thoko Msane, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and the youngest member of Mandela’s Cabinet, had just been conceived. There are […]
The Mail & Guardian is one of the very few newspapers in South Africa showing strong and steady growth. Sales for the country’s leading independent, quality paper in the last six months are up 7,7% over the previous six The release of Audit Bureau of Circulation figures is a time of hyperbole and obfuscation among […]
THE report of the Arts and Culture Task Group (Actag) released this week raises, among many other questions, the issue of representation. The cultural organisations which exist in our society, almost without exception, still bear the imprint of the apartheid era. On one hand we have bodies like the Federasie vir Afrikaner Kultuur and the […]
Steuart Wright Public servants queue to place their bags on the conveyor-belt metal detector at Umtata’s Botha Sigcau government building. They wait patiently for the bags to emerge, unfazed by the fact there are no security personnel to check them anyway. It is part of the ritual of coming to work — in a building […]
Non-governmental organisations are more important now than before liberation, argues Paul van Zyl A FORTNIGHT ago, President Nelson Mandela signed into law the Bill which will establish the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. A study of the process which led to the formation of the truth commission provides a fascinating insight into the functioning of the […]
In a blatant breach of international public broadcasting ethics, the SABC is screening promotional material which pretends to be educational, reports Justin Pearce Thursday afternoon on CCV-TV. You’ve recently had a baby, so when you hear that toilet training is the subject of today’s A Guide to Health, you take notice. The programme starts with […]
South African mercenaries have turned the tide of the civil war in Sierra Leone, reports Edward O’Loughlin Sierra Leone’s military government has been on a roll in recent weeks, driving rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) back from the capital Freetown and recapturing the vital diamond mining region of Kono. The change in fortunes […]
The United States is putting pressure on South Africa to break diplomatic ties with Cuba, reports Stefaans Brummer SOUTH Africa is fast becoming a proxy battlefield for American policy on Cuba — but Pretoria’s diplomats appeared this week to be resisting pressure to toe Uncle Sam’s line on Fidel Castro. Department of Foreign Affairs representative […]
Paleo-tourism is the new buzzword after the discovery of the significance of ‘Little Foot’, report David Beresford and Eddie Koch In an office tucked away in a corner of the University of the Witwatersrand, a professor who looks disconcertingly like Albert Einstein can be found dreaming of a new form of tourism — a grand […]
Rehana Rossouw Africa’s last colony, the Sahrawi Republic (Western Sahara), is battling for support from the South African government which, it was hoping, could play an active role in its struggle for freedom from Moroccan colonisers — who are applying pressure on South Africa not to do so. South Africa is the only country in […]
School feeding schemes in the Eastern Cape have collapsed due to fraud and mismanagement, report Pat Sidley and Rod Amner President Nelson Mandela’s flagship presidential project, the school feeding scheme, has ground to a halt in the Eastern Cape. Fraud and incompetence has consumed the province’s R114-million budget for the year in just four months. […]
Pat Sidley IT’S not all bleak on the school-feeding front. Western Cape experts have piloted several projects they hope will nourish children, involve communities and assist the families of schoolchildren in nutrition education. The type of meal the province has settled for consists of a mealie-meal porridge with a sandwich and a soya- based flavoured […]
Eddie Koch Farmers in the Potchefstroom district fear vast tracts of arable land in the North-West have been damaged by radioactive waste and contaminated ground water from neighbouring gold mines. The Council for Nuclear Safety (CNS) last month completed a R5-million clean-up operation aimed at removing tons of used pipes and machinery that had been […]
Gaye Davis GOVERNMENT employees who blow the whistle on corruption or maladministration will be protected from reprisals in terms of ground-breaking legislation currently being The proposed Open Democracy Act contains a “whistleblower” clause, protecting government employees who reveal wrongdoing. The draft legislation — currently in its 10th version — marks a complete break with the […]
Health care expert Paul Gross warns that Minister Nkosazana Zuma’s health insurance policy is fatally HEALTH Minister Nkosazana Zuma’s national health insurance system should have reassured those who expected draconian solutions to problems of access and financing in health care. But it remains flawed. I have looked at her committee of inquiry’s report, and judged […]
Mehlo Mvelase and Ann Eveleth A faction fight between two Inkatha Freedom Party- aligned groups from northern KwaZulu/Natal on Wednesday night led to the police shooting eight people dead in Durban’s KwaMashu township, said sources on the scene. Relatives of the deceased told the Mail & Guardian police had been “used” by one side of […]
Lawyers accuse KwaZulu/Natal Attorney General Tim McNally of wilfully avoiding uncovering the truth behind hit squad activities, reports Ann Eveleth A former security branch policeman eager to open his bag of dirty tricks is likely to go to jail on weapons charges instead; a policeman roams free three months after an inquest implicated him as […]
Gavin du Venage GAUTENG Safety and Security Minister Jessie Duarte has=20 been snubbed by magistrates after they refused to meet=20 her to discuss bail conditions for people charged with=20 violent crimes. Duarte asked for a meeting last month to discuss bail=20 conditions, in particular those for people accused of=20 taxi-related violence. The request was turned […]
GOLF: Jon Swift THE South African Professional Golf Association (SAPGA) is bidding to include three European Tour tournaments in this year’s event roster. In this, there is potentially a lot of long-term benefit. But there is some less than welcome news in the shorter term. It could be argued that the inclusion of the Lexington […]
The great white poachers of the Limpopo Valley have=20 been taken on by a lone ranger, reports Fiona Macleod Sergeant Barnard — the new commander at the Pont Drift=20 station near Alldays — has declared war against the=20 white farmers, police and conservation authorities in=20 the area who have for years been involved in poaching=20 […]
The Western Cape has come out tops as South Africa’s most competitive province in a report issued this week on the competitiveness of the nine provinces by the Foundation for Research and Development (FRD). Gauteng ranked second, followed by KwaZulu/Natal, Free State, Eastern Transvaal, North-West, Eastern Cape, Northern Province and Northern Cape. The provinces were […]
Justin Pearce As an international campaign to ban landmines was=20 launched in South Africa this week, campaigners=20 expressed concern that the state-owned arms=20 manufacturers should profit both from the manufacture=20 and the removal of mines. It was disclosed this week that Mechem, a division of=20 South African arms giant Denel, is almost certain to=20 assume […]
CINEMA: Stanley Peskin FRANCO ZEFFIRELLI’S Sparrow is imitation Luchino Visconti (perhaps a homage to The Leopard) and ersatz James Ivory, in particular A Room with a View, which it resembles on a number of occasions. Sparrow is undoubtedly expensive and opulent, but ultimately it emerges as no more than a dime-a-dozen Zeffirelli film. Here is […]
Clive Simpkins PALLO JORDAN is emphatic about not privatising Telkom, yet the Post Office — its sister megalith in our communications industry — is an example of monopolistic and bureaucratic business at its worst. I wrote recently that the mail service was degenerating into a non-service. It’s actually got worse. I received no mail in […]
Pat Sidley IT’S midnight, you’re on the table at HF Verwoerd=20 hospital. You’ve been told that your life has been=20 severely limited by your ailing heart and lungs. In a shooting on the Ben Schoeman highway, a perfectly=20 good set of heart and lungs has become available — but=20 your surgeon cannot go ahead and […]