Ernie Els has turned his back on the the tedium of the=20 US golf circus for a real life in Europe GOLF: Jon Swift THERE are two ways to attack the tedium and insularity=20 of the US professional golf tour. The first is to do=20 what Nick Price has done for years: switch on to […]
SOCCER: Andy Capostagno If it’s August, can the English soccer season be far=20 behind? Sad, but true, alas. And if you don’t think it’s=20 sad you obviously didn’t see Leeds United’s two=20 contributions to the United Bank Challenge. At Loftus Versfeld, Mamelodi Sundowns outplayed the=20 Yorkshire Monoliths, but only won 1-0 thanks to some=20 typically […]
Karen Harverson Foundry engineering and rolled steel producing group=20 Scaw Metals is investigating the possibility of=20 expanding into South America and may acquire a foundry=20 operation to supply the Chilean mining industry with=20 mining consumables such as mill liners and gauging=20 “It’s still in the early stages but we are looking to=20 diversify into other […]
Ann Eveleth Privatisation has moved to the centre-stage of the transformation debate at the University of Durban Westville (UDW), precipitating a fresh crisis which has led to assaults and racial insults being hurled. The black-dominated Students Representative Council (SRC), backing calls to privatise the Indian-dominated catering service at campus residences, has been accused of racism,assaults […]
South Africa’s first national Women’s Day brought gender issues to everyone’s lips in a way that this country has never seen before. It provided a great talking point — but also an opportunity for hollow rhetoric and bland generalities. Parliament took the lead on Tuesday by calling a special sitting to mark the day. The […]
Marion Edmunds Parliamentarians are making mileage out of the taxpayer — MPs and senators get to keep “voyager miles” earned while flying on official business, and may use them to pay for their holidays or personal business. South African taxpayers last year paid for R21,5- million worth of flights for parliamentarians. This involved 20 317 […]
Tuesday sees the world premiere in Johannesburg of Athol=20 Fugard’s new play. He spoke to MATTHEW KROUSE ATHOL FUGARD’S island, today, is not the isolated penal=20 colony he once dramatised with fellow actors John Kani=20 and Winston Ntshona. His present refuge is a territory=20 of optimism, where he directs hopeful youngsters who=20 symbolise freedoms gained. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Until now a secret, SA’s classification of potential=20 arms-buying countries reveals 30 blacklisted countries,=20 reports Stefaans Brummer NIGERIA, Libya, Sudan, Iraq, Yemen … These are some=20 of the 30-odd countries blacklisted by South Africa’s=20 new human rights-leaning classification of arms client=20 countries. The secret list is published by the Mail Guardian today. The classification 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 […]
GOLF: Jon Swift IT WAS hard to equate John Daly, the man who held the claret jug aloft at St Andrews last weekend, with the red-eyed rebel who had to be carried shirtless, rubber legged and near comatose to his room at the Sun City But then, they are surely not the same person. This […]
Shadley Nash Eastern Cape Muslims responding to a call to take up=20 arms against the rebel Serbs in Bosnia are being=20 trained in guerrilla warfare at a secret venue outside=20 Port Elizabeth. Sources have also confirmed that a training ground has=20 been established in Pietermaritzburg and another is=20 expected to be established in Cape Town. […]
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission: South Africa=20 can learn important lessons from the 15 truth=20 commissions around the world during the past two=20 Eddie Koch and Gaye Davis WHEN the Mothers of Plaza De Mayo gather at 3pm every=20 Thursday to bang pots in the centre of Buenos Aires,=20 they highlight a paradox that marks […]
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 […]
Gaye Davis and Eddie Koch MARIUS SCHOON is to sue former spy Craig Williamson for=20 R1-million in damages arising from the 1984 parcel bomb=20 which killed his wife, Jeanette, and six-year-old=20 daughter Katryn in Angola in 1984. Williamson has said he wants to apply for amnesty=20 before the truth commission. In terms of the act, […]