Staff Reporter

David Macfarlane Unisas controversial council is continuing its defiance of the government to the bitter end. It rejects the auditor generals recent report on the remuneration of councillors and is resisting Minister of Education Kader Asmals intention to dissolve the council. This week also brought further upheavals among senior management: vice-principal (tuition) Professor Simon Maimela […]

REVIEW Gavin Foster Ford Mondeo 2,0 Ghia R183 000 The problem with being a car salesman today is that there are so few bad cars around. Many years ago buyers had limited choices, and the differences were clear cut. The guy who walked in through the door was a Ford man, or a Chev man, […]

Nieps board now hardly fuctioning Glenda Daniels An exodus of economists is under way from what was once one of the countrys most influential economic think-tanks, the African National Congresss National Institute for Economic Policy (Niep). More than half of Nieps economists have left for the private sector, government and academia this year, or are […]

Gerhusirnay, Ethiopia | Thursday A YEAR after Ethiopia and Eritrea ended a bloody border war, people displaced by the conflict still cannot work their fields because of landmines, humanitarian officials say. “A lot of people have returned to their homes but have no access to their farmland because of landmine issues, and that is true […]

Johannesburg | Thursday SOUTH Africa’s labour legislation, coupled with the lack of skills among the majority of prospective employees, were responsible for the rising tide of unemployment, according to the SA Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR). In its 55th annual South Africa survey released in Johannesburg on Wednesday, SAIRR said the current 26 percent unemployment […]

Kano | Thursday ANGRY Muslims beat to death a Christian truck driver who accidentally reversed his lorry over a copy of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, witnesses said on Wednesday. The 42-year-old ethnic Igbo driver, locally known by the nickname of Saint Moritz, was reversing in a well-known fruit market in the northern city […]

A 23-year-old student in Nigeria has renounced Islam to escape amputation after he was accused in an Islamic court of stealing. Mohammed Ali told the court in the northwest city of Sokoto at the weekend that he would convert to Christianity and that he should be tried under the provisions of the Bible, Rima radio […]

ANTHONY STOPPARD, Johannesburg | Wednesday DESPITE a steep drop in the value of the South African rand, the government is likely to resist pressure for it to step in and try to protect the currency. The rand dropped from under R10 to a new low of R11,28 to the United States dollar, since the beginning […]

A ROMAN Catholic priest was gunned down in a township north of Pretoria in a hijacking shortly after he conducted a prayer meeting at a home, a police representative said on Sunday. Father Michael Danucci (60) was overpowered as he left the house at Soshanguve, about 15 kilometres north of the city, Inspector Anton Breedt […]

Harare | Tuesday A MEETING of southern African foreign ministers to assess Zimbabwe’s land reforms sharply criticised the West on Monday over attempts to impose sanctions on President Robert Mugabe’s government. “We would like to make it clear that we don’t support sanctions,” said the meeting’s chairwoman, Lilian Patel, Malawi’s foreign minister. Zimbabwe’s Foreign Minister […]

A 19-year-old alleged drug dealer from Cameroon was in critical condition after German police forced him to take an emetic to make him vomit up narcotics he had swallowed. Authorities said the man, who was not identified, had had a heart attack Sunday after being given the herbal emetic Ipecacuanha while in custody. Police later […]

Johannesburg | Tuesday HUNDREDS of unidentified and unclaimed corpses have piled up in mortuaries in and around Johannesburg and Pretoria, according to police who say they are forced to give the dead pauper’s burials. “On average 35 to 45 unidentified bodies arrive in the morgues in Gauteng (Province) every day,” police representative Mary Martins-Engelbrecht said […]

Bern | Monday A US attorney who played a key role in compensation claims by Holocaust survivors against Swiss banks is seeking plaintiffs to sue Swiss banks which financed South Africa’s former apartheid regime, a Swiss newspaper said on Sunday. Attorney Ed Fagan placed advertisements in South African newspapers this weekend asking for possible victims […]

OLA AWONIYI, Abuja | Monday NIGERIA will on Monday launch Africa’s first trial programme to use cheap, imported, generic Aids drugs to combat the disease sweeping the continent, officials said on Sunday. Aiming to tackle the effects of an epidemic now affecting almost 3,5-million Nigerians, and 28,1-million Africans, the programme will start in 18 federal […]

Harare | Monday FOREIGN ministers from six southern African countries are due in Harare on Monday to audit developments in Zimbabwe’s controversial land reforms, a government representative said on Sunday. The meeting is a follow-up to a Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit of heads of states held three months ago as part of an […]

EGYPTIAN police said on Monday they had arrested a gang which robbed gullible victims of their cash by pretending to change their Egyptian pounds into US dollars with the aid of genies. The four members of the gang gained 150 000 pounds, the equivalent of $35 295, in just a few days, the police said. […]

Q&A: judith sephuma Thebe Mabanga A Cry, A Smile, A Dance is the debut solo album from Judith Sephuma, a jazz vocalist on the rise. Having graduated at the University of Cape Town (UCT) school of music, majoring in jazz singing, the winner of the best jazz vocalist at Old Mutual Jazz Encounters in 1999 […]

David Macfarlane Thousands of schoolchildren look set to start their school year in January without textbooks but provincial education departments are refusing to admit this. And although budgeted expenditure on textbooks and stationery for the coming year is R1,1-billion an increase of about 15% questions are being raised about how much of this will actually […]

Barry Streek The Democratic Alliance has started picking up the pieces after the “great schism”, broadening its top leadership structure to keep New National Party members on board and make it more racially representative. The party’s national management committee decided this week to co-opt four black Democratic Party members MPs Donald Lee, Dan Maluleke and […]

Immigration legislation needs to be passed urgently to facilitate the flow of finance managers, IT personnel and engineers into the country Glenda Daniels Over the past year South Africa lost more professionals than during any similar period in the past 60 years, according to the South African Institute of Race Relation’s latest report on the […]

Barry Streek The South African Police Service confirmed this week that it is investigating alleged irregularities in the Thabo Mbeki Crossroads Education Fund as well as the theft of R30 000 from the African National Congress’s Western Cape provincial caucus. Police gave no further details about the probe into the education fund. The fund’s chairperson, […]

I have recently arrived in the New South Africa, and I was wondering what is the point of your column entitled “Body Language”? As a gender specialist, I do not see the purpose of employing an archaic “inyour-face” tone as a method toward greater awareness in tackling gender-related issues. It is more likely that you […]

Barry Streek Chinese explorers travelled to Southern Africa 150 years before their European counterparts were able to find a sea route to East Asia, National Assembly Speaker Frene Ginwala told a conference in Japan this week. The Chinese connection has been demonstrated by a map drawn by Ming cartographer Ch’uan Chin in 1402 at the […]

Paul Kirk A favoured daughter of the African National Congress looks set to face criminal prosecution for the alleged theft of trust funds while she practised as an attorney. Police this week told the Mail & Guardian that Durban socialite and former attorney Linda Zama could also face charges involving alleged irregularities involving both tax […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni A spate of disciplinary actions against South African ambassadors abroad has sparked a major row in the Department of Foreign Affairs over the chastising of political appointees by lower-level civil service functionaries. The Foreign Affairs Department has in the past few months instituted disciplinary action against five top diplomats, including heads […]

Mungo Soggot A leader of the right-wing underworld, Johan Niemoller, has been sentenced to jail for trading in R1,1-million worth of illegal diamonds. Niemoller was arrested and charged in 1998 in the Krugersdorp Magistrate’s Court for selling the diamonds, but his conviction and sentencing now have special poignancy as his name has come up in […]

Ngwako Modjadji The South African Certification Council (Safcert) has asked to meet Minister of Education Kader Asmal in the wake of a spate of leaks during this year’s matric exams. The leaks have prompted Safcert an independent oversight body established by an Act of Parliament to take a number of unprecedented measures to ensure the […]

Motorola’s new top-end cellphone would not look amiss in William Shatner’s hands David Shapshak Motorola’s clam shell cellphones have always reminded me of the Star Trek communicator, none more so than the latest top-end phone that features a powerful personal digital assistant (PDA). The Accompli 008, which features a Palm-like touch screen, would not look […]

MARIANNE MERTEN, Cape Town | Friday AMID condolences and warm tributes to murdered former first lady Marike de Klerk – initially thought to have committed suicide after years of depression following her divorce and singledom – her dark side has been largely forgotten. Apparently a reluctant politician’s wife, she had tried to persuade her former […]

Q&A: Peet pienaar Guy Willoughby Multifaceted artist Peet Pienaar was one of the prime movers behind the edgy, boundary-blurring Nescaf Post Festival of Art, Theatre, Video and Music at the revamped Bijou Theatre in Observatory, Cape Town, last week. One of your chief aims was to cross art and media divides. Did this happen? Absolutely. […]