Staff Reporter

Barry Streek The arms deal investigators Auditor General Shauket Fakie, Public Protector Selby Baqwa and National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka will face six parliamentary committees in public next week in the climax to Parliament’s hearings on the arms deal report. The chairperson of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), Gavin Woods, said […]

Durban | Friday OPERATIONS at two of South Africa’s ports came to a virtual standstill on Thursday as thousands of workers downed tools over payment of performance bonuses and upgrade reviews. Some 4 000 members of the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) are participating in the strike in the east coast port […]

Belinda Beresford Sitting alone behind his lawyers, hands frequently over his face, the director general of health often cut a forlorn figure in court this week. As the most senior civil servant in the Department of Health, Ayanda Ntsaluba had the unenviable task of being the front-line trooper in defending government policy that he did […]

spirit level Cedric Mayson A coven of Western witches exists in South Africa, complete with white pancake make-up, straggly hair and bangles. We have entranced people who walk through fire; men who dress in the vestments of the European middle ages, others in skins and beads, women who wear hats or dance on beaches, and […]

I had of late started to lose enthusiasm for buying and reading the Mail & Guardian, what with that obnoxious man Sipho Seepe blathering all over my weekly read. I am told he also goes under the pretext of being a professor but I think he can safely be referred to as a palooka. But […]

Belinda Beresford December 1 is World Aids Day, when red ribbons will be sported worldwide, speeches and promises made and learned research released and debated. Heart-rending stories of the dyingand those they leave behind, indignant news items about the high cost of drugs, and hand-wringing about the failure to change human behaviour push Aids to […]

Johannesburg | Friday BEER giant South African Breweries on Thursday announced its entry into the Central American market, buying the sole brewer in Honduras and forming a new company in El Salvador. SAB said it has bought a 97% interest in Cerveceria Hondurena S.A. (CHSA), sole brewer and largest soft drinks bottler in Honduras. It […]

Comment Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela President Thabo Mbeki’s speech at Fort Hare will lay nothing to rest. The president’s latest conspiracy theory on the Aids issue that Aids statistics have more to do with derogatory views (that “we” are “promiscuous carriers of germs” with an “unconquerable devotion to the sin of lust”) than sexual behaviour comes at […]

Unions say the government is pushing ahead with job cuts despite the fact that a framework agreement is not yet in place Glenda Daniels The government has told 7 274 public servants that their jobs are redundant and they face retrenchment, according to a survey of members carried out by public service trade unions. This […]

>From a virus point of view, HIV is a great survivor. Even the scientists trying to combat the Aids epidemic admire their mutant enemy. HIV is not particularly infectious, it’s not very hardy outside its host and it is susceptible to sterilising treatment like bleach. But it has a lengthy, hidden incubation period, and its […]

Provincial dispute over allocation of positions spreads into distribution of anti-retrovirals Jaspreet Kindra Party tensions in the KwaZulu-Natal government resurfaced this week, when the IFP premier and ANC health MEC clashed over the distribution of anti-retrovirals to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in the province. In addition, Inkatha Freedom Party Premier Lionel Mtshali insisted in […]

SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki will leave for China early next month to boost political and economic ties with the Asian country, a South African government official said on Wednesday. Deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad said Mbeki is to visit China from December 9 to 12 and will be accompanied by South Africa’s foreign affairs […]

Magnus Heystek has sustained a final kick in the teeth over allegations that he abused a family trust. Mungo Soggot reports Magnus Heystek, the financial guru and former darling of the media, has paid a “very large” out-of-court settlement to two young boys after being accused of mismanaging and profiting from their family trust. Heystek’s […]

Alex Sudheim Imagine pulling into the sweetest barrel you’ve ever dreamed of, then hitting pause and staying there forever. The surreal quality of this image is enhanced by the fact that, when looking out the far side of the tube you see not the ocean, but a giant video screen with yourself projected on it, […]

As the Apartheid Museum opens it doors, John Matshikiza wonders what will make the turnstiles spin Erecting a building that is to house the whole history of apartheid might seem a little premature. Are we really ready to announce the end of apartheid? Are we confident enough to encapsulate it as a piece of dead […]

Charlene Smith Traditional leaders and healers are moving rapidly to amend custom and tradition, and to use herbal remedies in some of the most effective battles against the ravages of Aids. The Medical Research Council (MRC)recently opened a research centre at Delft in Cape Town where traditional healers purvey their craft, and where they can […]

SOUTH African Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota arrived late on Tuesday in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where he is expected to hold talks with President Joseph Kabila on the formation of a peacekeeping force for the country’s eastern province of Kisangani. Lekota will also meet UN special representative Amos Namanga Ngongi and leaders of […]

Kaizer Chiefs are aiming to win their fourth trophy this weekend and we’re not halfway through the season yet Ntuthuko Maphumulo There’s never been a better time to be a Kaizer Chiefs supporter. The newly crowned Coca-Cola Cup champions seek a clean sweep of all the trophies on offer this season, with their next target […]

Simon Kuper Apparently baffling events, such as England beating Germany 5-1 away, often turn out to be part of a logical pattern. What made the result seem particularly curious was that Germany had lost only one World Cup qualifying match before. However, so had Brazil before 2000. This time they lost six, and the Dutch […]

Southern African states show a blatant lack of democratic awareness, Henning Melber argues With the gaining of political power by liberation movements in Zimbabwe in 1980 and Namibia in 1990, the final decolonisation of the African continent took its course. In 1994 a democratic political system under a lawfully elected African National Congress government was […]

DREW FORREST, Johannesburg | Friday FORMER Umkhonto weSizwe (MK)commander and defence minister Joe Modise challenges the principle that one should not speak ill of the dead. At best, his record is an ambiguous one. Modise was of former president Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo’s generation, joining the African National Congress Youth League in 1947 and […]

Latest figures estimate that by the end of the year there will 28-million people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa Belinda Beresford Knowing the enemy has failed to help in the battle against HIV. Two decades after the disease was identified, HIV/Aids continues to rampage its way across the world. The long incubation period of […]

I am appalled at the sloppy reporting and sensational headline that you permit in the article by Paul Kirk (“Newspaper sales figures ‘inflated’”, November 23). Routine checking would have established ignorance and a personal agenda. Independent Newspapers is a reputable company. We were founder members of the Audit Bureau of Circulations and comply with its […]

Paul Kirk President Thabo Mbeki’s ministerial committee that oversaw the Government’s R66-billion arms acquisition intervened to set conditions for the arms investigation after Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota initially gave investigators carte blanche. The Mail & Guardian reported earlier that the executive invoked sections of the apartheid-era Special Defence Account Act to give the government […]

THULI NHLAPO, NAWAAL DEANE, Johannesburg | Friday THE Human Rights Commission (HRC) pulled out of helping the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in its landmark challenge to the government on HIV/Aids after the commission’s then chair, Barney Pityana, got a phone call from the state’s advocate. After speaking to the state’s senior counsel, Marumo Moerane, in […]

The voice of Nelson Mandela, imprisoned in 1964 and sworn in as South Africa’s president 30 years later, was preserved forever on Thursday.

Having bagged a 1-2 in the Summer Cup, the richest race on the continent with Ingleside and Badger’s Coast, and the Dingaans with stardom-bound Flight Alert, Mike de Kock has shot into a R2-million lead over reigning champion David Ferraris in the drive for this season’s trainers’ title. There’s a long way to go before […]

Judith February The report by the joint investigative team into the arms deal somewhat overshadowed the rising of Parliament last Friday. Seven of the parliamentary committees will scrutinise the report during recess. The parliamentary year has, however, been anything but dull and some key pieces of legislation have been passed to the president. In addition, […]

The already long Sun City course is playing even longer for the elite field this week Michael Vlismas The English weather that has descended upon the Pilanesberg is obviously the reason Lee Westwood is able to overlook both his own dismal form and that of his racehorse this year in the hope at least one […]

A MALAWIAN musician, arrested and questioned by police at the weekend, died in hospital on Tuesday in what his family says are suspicious circumstances. The 32-year-old dreadlocked reggae musician, known by his stage name Evison Matafale, was arrested by police in Blantyre Saturday and taken for questioning in Lilongwe, over 300 kilometres away. His arrest […]

report rise in Aids cases Belinda Beresford Full-blown Aids cases are remorselessly rising at three of Gauteng’s premier teaching hospitals, suggesting that the huge levels of HIV infection are steadily translating into terminal illness. The University of the Witwatersrand revealed this week that the level of medical admissions to Helen Joseph hospital due to full-blown […]

Marianne Merten Three New National Party provincial leaders Mpumalanga’s Chris MacPherson, North West’s Amie Venter and the Northern Province’s Schalk van Schalkwyk are certain to win places in their provincial cabinets in terms of the cooperative governance pact between the NNP and the African National Congress announced this week. In terms of the pact, NNP […]