Staff Reporter

Nairobi | Tuesday KENYAN police arrested a South African who tried to set his country’s high commission on fire because it allegedly refused to help him after he was robbed officials said on Tuesday. Joseph Makhosan Makhuvele on Monday tried to enter the embassy carrying four litres of petrol, a knife and a match box, […]

Paris | Tuesday ONE of the grimmest chapters of Europe’s colonial involvement in Africa will draw to a close if a proposed law, due to be debated by the French parliament, comes to fruition. A bill scheduled to be put to the upper house on Tuesday will see the remains of Saartjie Baartman, the so-called […]

THE Mail & Guardian’s literary editor and film reviewer Shaun de Waal has been awarded the 2001 FNB/Vita Thomas Pringle award for his film reviews. The judging committee praised De Waal’s “exceptional way of dealing with a diverse range of subject matter” and noted that his “skill as a reviewer brings in the many nuances […]

EMSIE FERREIRA, Cape Town | Tuesday THE South African government and the European Union on Monday signed a long-awaited trade deal on wine and spirits that will allow South Africa to export 42-million litres of wine duty free to the European market annually. It was the last outstanding component of a free trade agreement between […]

Durban | Tuesday THE anti-Aids drug Nevirapine could be dispensed from 20 major hospitals in South Africa’s eastern KwaZulu-Natal Province in six months, the province’s Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Monday. Mkhize said research scientists, who are engaged in pilot projects ahead of the potential widespread use of Nevirapine, had made good progress in […]

Lagos | Tuesday THOUSANDS of children are still missing 36 hours after fleeing the explosion of a weapons store in Nigeria’s main city, Lagos, a representative for the Nigerian Red Cross said on Tuesday. “Many thousands of people, most of them children, have been displaced. There are thousands still missing,” said the representative Patrick Bawa. […]

INTERNATIONAL and domestic flights were suspended at dawn in Madagascar on Monday, and public transport and freight services ground to a halt in response to a general strike call by the opposition. At least 300 000 demonstrators were converging on the central May 13 square in the country’s capital in the early morning, where daily […]

Brussels | Tuesday EU foreign ministers on Monday threatened the Zimbabwe government with “targeted sanctions” from February 3 if it does not agree by then to allow the deployment of EU observers for March elections. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who pushed hardest throughout the day’s ministerial meeting for the sanctions threat, warned Zimbabwe President […]

TEA prices fell at the east African weekly auction in Mombassa as a result of a glut in the market, dealers said on Tuesday. “The current glut is effectively hurting prices,” a broker said. Monday’s quoted prices were on average lower by between two and three US cents a kilo, according to a market report […]

UNIVERSITIES in South Africa are owed R633-million in unpaid fees and technikons about R200-million, e-tv news reported on Wednesday. The University of Transkei tops the list of struggling campuses and will have to rely on a bank loan until it receives a state subsidy in two months. As a result of unpaid fees administrators have […]

Cape Town | Sunday THE inspector-general of South Africa’s intelligence services, Fazel Randera, has quit after six months in the post, President Thabo Mbeki’s office said on Saturday. Randera resigned from the post, which is meant to provide civilian oversight over the country’s intelligence network, for personal reasons, Mbeki’s representative Bheki Khumalo said. He said […]

London | Monday LONDON will recommend to EU foreign ministers that they put Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe “on the spot” and threaten him with tough sanctions, a representative for Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Sunday. “We believe it is time to focus President Mugabe’s mind more sharply on the consequences of his repression and […]

Johannesburg | Monday SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki will address the World Economic Forum in New York on Thursday to call for funding for The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), his office said. “The president will be making a strong call for financial backing,” his representative Bheki Khumalo said on Sunday. He said African […]

NEAL COLLINS, Johannesburg | Sunday LUCAS Radebe, known at “The Chief” at Leeds United, is ready to concede defeat in his own personal Battle of Wounded Knee. The 33-year-old Bafana Bafana captain faces yet another bout of surgery on his knees after the joint locked during training at the club’s Thorpe Arch training complex last […]

CHURCH’S Chicken, a division of US based AFC Enterprises announced the signing of a master franchise agreement with South African-based Steers Holdings to sub-franchise the development and operation of 100 Church’s Chicken restaurants over the next five years. The franchise agreement awards exclusive rights to Steers Holdings to sub-franchise Church’s Chicken restaurants in South Africa, […]

Lagos | Monday MORE than 580 bodies were pulled from a Lagos canal early on Monday after a massive crowd stampeded as it fled a huge arms dump explosion in the city, said a distraught witness. “I have counted more than 580 (bodies), 580, I am looking for my children. I have been here since […]

Nigeria’s lower house of parliament on Wednesday called on President Olusegun Obasanjo to request the return of the nation’s artefacts on display at The British Museum. In a motion unanimously passed, legislators also directed the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments to furnish it with a list of all Nigerian artefacts at the museum, […]

Johannesburg | Friday SOUTH Africa’s Constitutional Court on Friday rejected an appeal by a Rastafarian to be allowed to smoke dagga, or marijuana, as part of his religion. Judge-president Arthur Chaskalson said the majority of the bench was not in favour of letting candidate attorney Gareth Prince use the drug. Prince last year filed an […]

Ngwako Modjadji National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi is set to investigate allegations of racism, intimidation, corruption and maladministration against police officials at the Welbekend police station, outside Bronkhortspruit in Gauteng. A representative of Selebi, Sally de Beer, confirmed this week that they are waiting for a report from the area commissioner in Pretoria before investigations […]

Your liberal crap makes you seem so silly (“The US doesn’t have the right to decide who is or isn’t a PoW”, January 18). You should pick your pompous ass up and come on over for a front-row seat at ground zero. Then we can talk about how inhumane it is to hood a prisoner. […]

SOCCER Ntuthuko Maphumulo The second half of the Premier Soccer League (PSL) season looks to be tightly contested, although the gap between log leaders Moroka Swallows (39) and bottom of the log Classic (13) is 26 points. The title race is likely to throw up a new champion as some of the perennially strong teams […]

The startling truth about the Middle-East conflict and Jewish sentiment towards the Holy Land has no similarities to that of any nation in the world. Just as Jews insist on preaching their obligation to aliyah (immigration to Israel), they need to accept that it has far-reaching implications. If one studies the sad statistics of those […]

Barry Streek Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon has admitted there are rumblings about his leadership of the party in the wake of last year’s walkout by the New National Party. Expressions of discontent have emerged in the Western Cape and Gauteng regions of the DA, where Leon’s “abrasive” style and his “inaccessibility” have been criticised. […]

BOXING John Rawling As the dust settled in New York’s Millennium hotel, after a press conference to showcase the richest fight in history had disintegrated into mayhem, one overriding conclusion was clear: Mike Tyson is patently unfit to be taking his place in a boxing ring. This was no stage-managed World Wrestling Federation-style knockabout hype, […]

Jaspreet Kindra Disillusioned by the apparent reconciliation between the trade unions and the African National Congress, United Democratic Movement president Bantu Holomisa now doubts any alliance can be forged between opposition groupings before the 2004 general elections. “I don’t think parties are ready or that our political process is mature enough,” he said this week. […]

Negotiated transition averted mass bloodshed COMMENT Saeb Erakat and Yossi Beilin These feel like the worst of days. Last week saw Israeli air raids on the Palestinian headquarters in Tulkarm, in retaliation for the killing by a Palestinian gunman of six Israeli civilians at a bat mitzvah or coming-of-age party. That was a revenge attack […]

A SECOND LOOK Brian Ndoda Biyela Anthony Holiday’s perplexing article in the Mail & Guardian last week reveals how he fails to discern President Thabo Mbeki’s shrewd leadership of the government. Mbeki’s call is bigger and more noble than just pleasing the new black elite and their counterparts from Houghton and Constantia. When black arrivistes […]

David Macfarlane Months of hostilities between Unisa and the Ministry of Education reached boiling point this week when they faced each other in court on Thursday after negotiations to reach a settlement failed. There is now mounting alarm within the university that the turmoil Unisa’s court application has generated is obscuring, and worsening, a long-standing […]

The troubles of Baixinha, the “pretty” rhino who became world famous, are far from over Fiona Macleod Veterinarians say Baixinha, an extremely rare and rather famous East African black rhino being kept at a game farm near Brits, may die of bleeding stomach ulcers before “canned” hunters can get to her. A professional hunter offered […]

Bongani Majola and Thebe Mabanga Johannesburg’s Nelson Mandela Theatre is host to an uneasy mix of audience members. Zulu-speaking hostel residents from surrounding settlements rub shoulders with black and white suburbanites keen to learn more about Zulu history. All have come to watch the life story of Zulu king Shaka in the musical Bayede Shaka: […]

theatre GuyWilloughby Cape Comedy Collective, Armchair Theatre, Observatory. Every Sunday giggle at a line-up of comics at their home venue. On Sunday January 27 guffaw at the first of a new Month That Was series, a monthly comic look at current events (and non-events) with Stuart Taylor, Petra Sheiber, Nik Rabinowitz, Melanie Jones, Warren Harding […]

Glenda Daniels With a week to go before the latest deadline for settlement, a draft accord between unions and the government, leaked to the Mail & Guardian, highlights key outstanding differences on retrenchments and staff transfers in the state bureaucracy. The government has been pushing for a deal since last year’s public service job summit, […]