Staff Reporter

Shadley Nash HEALTH services in the Eastern Cape are on the brink of collapse with reports of corpses rotting in mortuaries, hospitals operating without water and medicine shortages. Water shortages in rural Transkei will compound the region’s health crisis with the regional government appealing to the Department of Water Affairs to intervene. CPA’s regional health […]

It was a New Year party of a different kind when hundreds of people broke through the barriers at the border post between South Africa and Mozambique HUNDREDS of returning Mozambican workers broke down gates at an unmanned crossing point along the South African/Mozambican border on New Year’s Day and passed unchecked into South Africa. […]

SAILING: Jonathan Spencer Jones AS IF a reprisal for the windless conditions of the first leg of the BOC Challenge singlehanded around the world race, the second leg, which has taken the entrants from Cape Town to Sydney, Australia, was one of almost continuous gales from which few of the yachts have escaped damage. But […]

Media & Marketing Clive Simpkins THERE is a fascinating emerging synergy between current personal development thinking, the ensuing relationships and today’s business marketing. The end of the 1994 business year prompted an examination of marketing and the role of marketers in the light of these subtle yet significant trends and shifts in thinking. In the […]

Security at upcoming Ellis Park concerts is likely to determine South Africa’s ability to attract big acts in the future. But, with one week to go before Roxette takes the stage, no arrangements have been finalised yet. Pat Sidley reports DON’T feel too secure about the major rock concerts scheduled to take place in the […]

Critical Consumer Pat Sidley CONSUMERS in the Gauteng area may have noticed over the past two years that they have fewer choices of dairy products every time they get to the shelves. Those in other areas may have noticed the same over differing periods. For those consumers with high cholesterol, or a serious desire to […]

Two South African businessmen — one big, one small — show the gap in expectations of the new South Africa. Ann Eveleth reports Ahmed-Sadek Vahed can’t stop smiling when he talks about the new South Africa. Executive officer of what is probably South Africa’s largest family-owned business outside the JSE, the Durban-based AM Moola Group, […]

Crime exists in South Africa — no one is arguing about that, writes criminologist Daniel Nina. The question is whether tough measures will deal with it THE liberal press call it “Public Enemy No 1”. Many social sectors are calling to end the moratorium on the death penalty. The well-off and poor communities are scared: […]

Mondi Paper is likely to apply for a JSE listing this month — but nobody’s talking, reports Jacques Magliolo Amic-controlled Mondi Paper is to apply to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange for a listing within the next month, reliable industry sources from within the company confirmed this week. Speaking on behalf of Mondi company directors, who […]

Steuart Wright: East London HOMELESSNESS in the East Griqualand town of Matatiele has become a political football in the battle for the territory between kwaZulu/Natal and the Eastern Cape. The chairman of the Matatiele Squatters’ and Workers’ Association, Watson Mokoatle, says there is no political motive behind last weekend’s invasion of municipal land by about […]

Derek Fleming THE National Party is caught up in a power struggle between factions led by Constitutional Development Minister Roelf Meyer and his rival, Environment and Tourism Minister Dawie de Villiers. The two men are gearing up to do battle for political turf and it is expected the contest will come to a head at […]

A chemical plant developing nerve gas was one of the front companies set up by the SADF, writes Eddie Koch THE South African Defence Force conducted an expensive programme to test and develop state-of-the-art nerve gases at a secret plant called Delta G in Midrand near Johannesburg as part of a chemical warfare programme that […]

Mapula Sibanda THE 330 guns handed in during the Gun-Free South Africa Campaign represent a drop in the ocean in relation to the 3,25-million arms owned by South Africans. According to South African Police Services representative Major Sally de Beer, almost two million South Africans are registered licence holders, some owning more than one gun. […]

Dear Andrew, WOULD it be presumptious to assume that along with the pain there was a touch of relief when you found that you’d been dropped for the third Test? Given your recent run of poor form and the fact that having a bat between your hands seems to turn you into a player who […]

Weekly Mail Reporter A NUMBER of cash-strapped Gauteng-based community arts projects have received “emergency relief” in the form of R350 000 from the regional government. Arts projects, like other non-governmental organisations, are facing financial crises as donors redirect their money towards the reconstruction and development programme. The government funds are considered “disaster control” for the […]

`Progressive grunge’ band Lithium is injecting some vitality into Cape Town’s ailing music scene. Malu van Leeuwen reports LITHIUM, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a “soft silver-white metallic element”. Well, there is a metallic edge to their music, and they are four white boys. But no, Lithium is definitely not soft. In their […]

hundreds of thousands of rand into a top-secret trust hidden from his donors and trustees. Pat Sidley and Justin Pearce report THE Weekly Mail & Guardian has discovered that Dr Allan Boesak and some of his close colleagues set up a trust for business operations, so secret his donors and trustees didn’t know about it. […]

The Judicial Service Commission failed to meet the demands of an open society, argues one of its members, law professor Etienne Mureinik. He proposes a set of laws that would help break the culture of secrecy OUR interim constitution affirms the goal of openness in government more strongly than does any other respected constitution. Probably […]

Native tongue Bafana Khumalo I HAD a great holiday season, I really did and it is great to be happy, I discovered. This was a holiday season when I decided to go mainstream. Instead of getting depressing videos to watch until January 2, I went out and joined the throngs of shoppers in town going […]

Vuyo Mvoko PUBLIC service workers took to the streets of Pretoria this week, giving the government a sharp reminder that the potentially explosive wage dispute in the sector is still on the boil. And the dispute is causing mounting embarrassment for Cosatu’s National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), whose continued attempts to reach […]

POP: Bafana Khumalo IN the world of popular music, some creations reach out and grab you by the throat, demanding attention. Some grow on you and stay with you for the rest of your life. Others, sadly, immediately become wallpaper and disappear as soon as they are churned out by the record company. East Meets […]

AMID all the gloom of Department of Education and Training matric results, there were some schools that shone with excellent results. A total of 34 DET schools had 100 percent pass rates. Of these, 20 were in kwaZulu/Natal. These 34 tops schools are: KwaZulu/Natal Buhlebethu School Domino Servite High School Drakensberg High School Enzamweni Secondary […]

With South African artists now participating in most major international festivals and our own Johannesburg Biennale on the horizon, Ivor Powell asks: how good are we really? DURING the years when South Africans were banned from the big world party, we kept ourselves going on a distinctly unhealthy cultural diet. Its substance was our own […]

Even the experts differ on the nuances of cricket, but explaining the game to the uninitiated is a difficult task CRICKET: Jon Swift IT was, in the light of retrospect, a debate that should neither have been contemplated nor entered into in the first place. Attempting to unravel the mysteries of the game of cricket […]

Drew Forrest THE National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) must serve as the economic equivalent of the World Trade Centre negotiations, says Nedlac’s newly appointed executive director Jayendra Naidoo. This means mapping out “far-reaching, society-wide agendas, rather than getting bogged down in ad hoc trade-offs and short-term trouble-shooting”. Speaking from Norway, where he is […]

Vuyo Mvoko CLARENCE MAKWETU, re-elected president of the Pan Africanist Congress, has always drawn criticism from other parties, but none has been as harsh as the criticism he got from his own party during its congress last weekend. Although wary of inflicting more wounds on their party, delegates made no secret of their dissatisfaction. Fumed […]

Vuyo Mvoko JANE HLONGWANE (28), her face exuberant with the satisfaction of pregnancy, smiled as she was asked how she felt now that she and her unborn child could take advantage of free medical care from the government. “Happy, really happy …” she said, in search of better words to describe her pleasure. Two years […]

The softest whispers are often the loudest. The meagre turn-out at the last official Day of the Vow commemorations was a thunderous condemnation of the state of the rightwing, reports Jan Taljaard AT the end of a year of turmoil, trauma and intimations of volkstaat born from apocalyptical destruction, all that remained on December 16 […]

Do you read the Weekly Mail & Guardian often enough? Write down your responses, avoiding the temptation to check them against the answers printed below. Then turn the page around and score one point for each answer you got right 1. What magazine did Nelson Mandela edit this year? 2. How many cars were stolen […]

including sex Laws relating to prostitution and homosexuality are no longer enforced and the government has altered it stance on sex. But have South Africans shaken off Calvinistic attitudes? Mark Gevisser reports WHEN South Africa’s first democratic parliament decided to amend its rules to allow for broader definitions of who could qualify as “spouses” of […]

The government is still basking in the afterglow of the elections. It has delivered many bold ideas — but nothing concrete yet. Anton Harber reports