Mail & Guardian reporters, Johannesburg | Friday AS Tony Yengeni became the second African National Congress parliamentary casualty of the arms deal, speculation mounted this week that he could be a strategic sacrifice whose arrest will protect more influential players. Former defence minister Joe Modise and army procurement chief Chippy Shaik top the list of […]
LIBYAN leader Muammar Gadaffi on Tuesday questioned the legitimacy of the United States leading an international campaign against terrorism, and also accused Britain of being the country sheltering the largest number of terrorists. In comments published on the official Libyan government website, Gadaffi warned against a two-speed policy towards states accused of harbouring terrorists. “It […]
You suggest you are “starting to feel sorry” for Minister of Home Affairs Mangosuthu Buthelezi, for the delayed enactment of the Immigration Bill (September 28). It is probably true to say that no piece of legislation has come under more intense public scrutiny and stonewalling tactics in the history of the new democratic dispensation. While […]
Jaspreet Kindra Tensions between Mpumalanga Premier Ndaweni Mahlangu and Fish Mahlalela have spilled over in an extraordinary Constitutional Court challenge by the premier to his former MEC. The case highlights deepening conflict between the executive and the legislature in the province. Now an ordinary MPL, Mahlalela was removed as local government MEC by Mahlangu in […]
Paul Rees When the Barbarians take on Australia in Cardiff at the end of next month, it will be the last time the invitation club meets a touring side unless it agrees to donate a significant percentage of the profits to developing nations. For the past 54 years, the Barbarians have traditionally brought down the […]
TEACHERS at the Lagos State University have launched strike action to press for higher pay and better conditions. The strike began on Tuesday and “is total and indefinite”, said the chairman of the ASUU teachers’ union, Gbola Aderibigbe. The union leader accused the Lagos State government of not paying outstanding salaries and allowances, and of […]
Thabo Mohlala Residents in Zandspruit, an informal settlement in Honeydew north of Johannesburg, are living in fear after marauding hoodlums went on the rampage and assaulted “foreigners”. According to residents the attack followed a brawl at a shebeen where a Xhosa-speaking man was allegedly shot by a man of Zimbabwean origin. Other Xhosa-speaking residents then […]
Glenda Daniels Congress of South African Trade Unions affiliates in the public service have accused the government of flouting bargaining procedures by making an improved pay offer to non-Cosatu unions outside the official bargaining forum. As a strike by potentially 500 000 public servants loomed, state officials hotly denied this, accusing Cosatu of having missed […]
Pride in environmental awareness is what drives a school in northern KwaZulu-Natal, writes Niki Moore It’s a school in the forest the indigenous Dukuduku Forest on the verge of the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park. The school is called Ubuhle bemvelo (the beauty of nature) to reflect its location within a World Heritage Site. The […]
THE Tamazight or Berber language is to be officially recognized in Algeria, with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika due to change the constitution which currently only recognizes Arabic. Officials said the decision was announced to representatives of village committees and tribes from the Kabylie region who met Prime Minister Ali Benflis. Kabylie in the northeast is the […]
Tony Twine A well-known local economist recently reminded an audience of economists and media writers that participants in currency markets are myopic and have no memory whatsoever. It was less a sideswipe at traders than a reminder that in the heat of trading room battles, the luxury of a cool, calm and holistically collected economic […]
Many Americans are blaming new technology for aiding terrorism, writes Duncan Campbell As United States forces converge on Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone has not been cut off. But calls to his satphone relayed via an Inmarsat satellite 40 000km over the Indian Ocean are going unanswered. His number 00873 682505331 was disclosed during […]
The ruling elite may have missed out on lessons in reasoning NO blows BARRED Sipho Seepe It is difficult to look back at my schooling with fond memories. How could I, when the philosophical grounding of education was to ensure that schools were conducted in such a way that “the natives will be taught from […]
AN outbreak of swine fever has hit Malawi’s northern district of Karonga, threatening at least 20 000 pigs in the district alone, a veterinary official said on Thursday. Patrick Chikungwa, the district’s veterinary officer said a quarter of the pigs in the region have been affected by the disease which has killed at least some […]
A second Look Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela There are many troubling questions raised by Sipho Seepe’s article (“Where are the so-called leaders?” September 21 to 27), not least the question of the extent to which fear has paralysed those in leadership and silenced them from speaking out against some of the indefensible statements made from the president’s […]
Howard Barrell and Jaspreet Kindra The HIV/Aids epidemic has taken on “shattering dimensions” and now accounts for one-in-four of all deaths, according to the Medical Research Council’s (MRC) report into the virus that has been suppressed by the government. The report, in the opinion of many the most authoritative of its kind into the effects […]
Duncan Mackay After years of steady improvement, women’s distance running has finally come of age. When Japan’s Naoko Takahashi set the world marathon record of 2hr 19min 46sec in Berlin on Sunday she achieved a landmark that had long been the holy grail for every female runner. A sub-2hr 20min time had been a target […]
THE leader of Swaziland’s main opposition, Mario Masuku, was arrested and taken to prison in Mbabane on Thursday after defying bail conditions imposed on him following a charge of sedition. Masuku, head of the Peoples United Democratic Movement (Pudemo), was charged with sedition a year ago in the tiny landlocked kingdom, ruled by absolute monarch […]
The world’s media is battling for ringside seats as war looms in Afghanistan. Stefaans Brmmer reports from Dushanbe, Tajikistan The uniform in Hotel Tajikistan is the khaki camera jacket, as worn by gung-ho journalists worldwide. Its proliferation of pockets conveniently stores notebooks, pens and lenses, but also the wads of cash and official passes that […]
Peace protesters hold it aloft as do the advocates of war. The Right rallies round it but so do radicals. It’s now a flag of defiance and of mourning. Ed Vulliamy explores the many meanings of the Stars and Stripes In a landscape smothered by the dust of death Pompeii in our lifetime three New […]
Gregory Mthembu-Salter South African National Defence Force (SANDF) troops may be heading for Burundi, despite the absence of a ceasefire in the long-running and bloody civil war. The SANDF troops are likely to form part of a special protection unit (SPU) for Hutu politicians returning from exile to join a new transitional government, scheduled to […]
SOCCER Neal Collins These are tough times for Bafana Bafana’s big defender Pierre Issa. South Africa’s former Marseille player, who went on loan to Chelsea and made no impact last season, has now linked up with Gianluca Vialli’s Watford. But if he expected life to be easier in the second level of English football, he […]
KHADIJA MAGARDIE, Johannesburg | Friday IN the wake of the September 11 terror attacks on the United States, speculation has mounted that the government is under pressure to show its commitment to ending global terrorism by pushing through draft legislation so dogged by controversy that it received mention in Amnesty International’s 2001 human rights report. […]
CRICKET Peter Robinson If you hadn’t heard of the Summer Spice Series, fear not: you’re about to hear an awful lot about it over the next few weeks. This is the name dreamed up mainly to cover India’s travels around South Africa for the next two months but which also encompasses Kenya’s visit to this […]
Khadija Magardie South Africa’s controversial draft anti-terror legislation will remain on the back-burner at least until the middle of next year In the wake of the September 11 terror attacks on the United States, speculation has mounted that the government is under pressure to show its commitment to ending global terrorism by pushing through draft […]
analysis Khulekani Mathe Who sets the agenda for Adult Basic Education and Training (Abet) in South Africa? Before 1994 the agenda was set in Pretoria by the National Party government. Underpinned by a theory of uneven development based on racial discrimination, apartheid produced an education system that relegated black people to the bottom of the […]
FIVE people were wounded, two of them needing hospital treatment, when a pet hyena broke loose in a northeast Nigerian city. The hyena, used for entertaining crowds by its owner Ismaila Ibrahim, broke its chain and attacked passers-by in the Gomari district of Maiduguri, capital of Borno State, a report by state-run Borno Radio said. […]
Trainer Mike de Kock has an exciting filly on his hands in Brazilian import Velvet Green, and even carrying top weight from the worst draw she looks like the one to beat in the R200000 grade 2 Spring Challenge for fillies and mares over 1600m at Gosforth Park on Saturday. Punters who allowed the four-year-old […]
Frank Keating on the great Basil D’Oliveira, who celebrated his 70th birthday this week. Or did he? The one-time enemy of the state has a few times been welcomed back to the new South Africa as prophet and treasure. “Oh sure, they’ve even given me full red-carpet treatment in the Orange Free State,” says Basil […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Eastern Cape health MEC Bevan Goqwana has been relieved of his duties following an appearance in court this week on charges of medical aid fraud. Goqwana will, however, continue to draw his monthly salary until his fraud case has been finalised. Land Affairs and Agriculture MEC, Max Mamase, has been appointed […]
There have been 105 739 cases if cholera reported in KwaZulu-Natal since August 2000, the province’s health department reported this week. The fatality rate is 0.215% and 228 have died. Cholera is a bacterial infection, which is contracted by drinking contaminated water or by eating food which has been in contact with contaminated water, flies […]
MOTORRACING Alan Henry It was an oblique tribute to Murray Walker’s key role in the shaping of Formula One’s televised image over the past three decades that Jaguar driver Eddie Irvine felt obliged to blurt out a dose of light-hearted, if hardly diplomatic, criticism of Bernie Ecclestone’s grand prix show at Indianapolis last weekend. Invited […]