Staff Reporter

By regulating the plea-bargaining procedure, the government is attempting to make it more efficient Judith February The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development is introducing a Bill to fast-track the criminal justice system through a plea-bargaining arrangement. Such an arrangement entails an agreement whereby the accused pleads guilty to a charge before appearing in court, […]

David Macfarlane Wilma Wessels took the education high road and successfully completed five Damelin Management School courses in four years. The top student in her class last year, Wessels says: “After studying the first, second and third modules in credit, I completed both business management and advanced business management as well.” Wessels’s choice of courses […]

Seven years into our democracy the poor still appear to possess only the right of access to courts to ensure that the government treats them with respect. The latest illustration of this sad manifestation of our politics occurred in the case of Ngxuza and others v The Permanent Secretary, Department of Welfare, Eastern Cape Provincial […]

THE University of the North on Wednesday vehemently denied reports that students held weekend strip shows on campus. Student Representative Council (SRC) president Nation Mthenjane said no one had ever stripped on campus. He said posters had been put up advertising a strip show, but that it was a gimmick to advertise a student bash. […]

Comment Larry Elliott The response to the attacks in the United States last week has been instant. Old ways of thinking have been ditched to fight the threat to the West. Life after September 11 may never be quite the same again. No, you haven’t missed something. The armchair generals who were demanding knee-jerk retaliation […]

CRICKET Peter Robinson South Africa need to sort a few things out before they take on Australia. This, I hasten to point out, is Shaun Pollock’s view, although I’m inclined to agree with him. It’s difficult to be critical of a team that has just won a two-Test series by one match to nothing and […]

China Major religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism China has said it will join the fight against terrorism. But it is unlikely to let United States forces use the narrow strip of its territory that borders Afghanistan. Tajikistan Major religion: Islam Tajikistan is the only country in the region which accepts a Russian military presence. It […]

Jaspreet Kindra Moves are afoot to force two top South African Communist Party officials, general secretary Blade Nzimande and his deputy, Jeremy Cronin, out of the African National Congress’s national executive committee (NEC). A senior SACP central committee member, who asked not to be named, said the ball was set rolling at the ANC’s inner […]

Johannesburg | Friday SOUTH Africa’s black and white chambers of commerce formally merged on Thursday despite strong reservations from the black and Afrikaner business communities. The National African Chamber of Commerce (Nafcoc) and the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob) said in a statement that they had formed a transitional body called the South African […]

CD of the week Ash:Free All Angels Betty Clarke Nowadays it’s not cool to be young and enjoy it. Instead, adolescence is surrounded by negativity and teenagers bemoan the fact that they have their whole lives in front of them. Where are the head-spinning thrills, the heart-stopping lust, the celebration of golden summer holidays that […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Aids and tuberculosis (TB) are the two ugly sisters, together ravaging ever increasing numbers of South Africans. Although TB is curable if the drug-resistant form of the disease is not present the medication must be used timeously and correctly. One project at the Research Institute for Industrial Pharmacy (RIIP) at Potchefstroom […]

It had been months in the planning, and within moments of the attack on September 11 old certainties had crumbled as surely as those mighty towers. We trace the arc of terror, from its secret beginnings and deadly actions, to the fallout that will affect us all Ed Vulliamy and Anthony Browne in New York, […]

“Further consultation over proposed amendments to the Constitution is needed” Barry Streek In an unusual move, the African National Congress head of Parliament’s local government committee, Yunus Carrim, has publicly urged further consultation on planned constitutional changes that have controversial implications for local government. Carrim’s intervention signals for the first time that the ANC is […]

BRENDAN BOYLE, Cape Town | Friday A COALITION of church, labour and civic groups challenged President Thabo Mbeki and his government on Thursday to acknowledge the scale of the HIV/Aids epidemic ravaging South Africa. “No one in our country can afford to deny the terrible extent of this epidemic,” the group said in a statement […]

There are fears that Zimbabwe’s reorganised Supreme Court might rubber-stamp ‘fast-track land reform’ Michael Hartnack Zimbabwean civil society went on trial this week when the country’s new Chief Justice, Godfrey Chidyausiku, branded criticism of himself “racist”. He refused to withdraw from the first constitutional test case brought before the country’s newly reorganised Supreme Court. The […]

Analysis Anthony Holiday It should surprise no one that the real culprit behind the acts of terror that have traumatised the United States and the global hamlet it effectively governs is not some group of Islamic fanatics but a philosophical doctrine, wholly occidental in origin, which is now rampant, not merely in academia but in […]

BOXING Deon Potgieter “Prince” Naseem Hamed has pulled out of a proposed featherweight bouton November 10 in London withSouth Africa’s Mbulelo Botile. Hamed said he felt that under the present political climate it would be better for him to delay his return to the ring until next year.Hamed, a devout Muslim,has made it clear he […]

Mail & Guardian reporter “Every day, in every community throughout South Africa, an elderly person is being emotionally belittled, isolated, punished, threatened with harm, and physically and sexually abused. In the vast majority of cases, the abuser is the victim’s spouse, partner, child, grandchild, primary care giver, or a person in the position of trust, […]

The following is a translation of the text of an edict issued by an Afghan grand Shura, or council, of Islamic clerics in Kabul on Thursday. “This meeting of ulema [scholars] expresses its anguish and sorrow over the attacks in the United States and hopes that America will not launch any attack against Afghanistan, and […]

Cape Town | Friday POLICE fired stun grenades on Thursday at some 350 squatters south of Cape Town, after they tried to invade municipal land, a policeman said. Captain Jacques Wiese said residents of the Mandela Park squatter camp in Hout Bay, some “armed with spades and pangas” tore down a municipal fence and moved […]

Carolyn Frost South Africa is the world’s 10th-largest exporter and 13th-largest producer of sugar cane, but a group of scientists at the University of Stellenbosch hope their research will help push the country up the rankings. Although South Africa is the third most productive grower of sugar cane, sugar yields have plateaued since the 1960s […]

Is the evidence against Osama bin Laden sufficient to unleash a war? Julian Borger in Washington and Ewen MacAskill As far as President George W Bush is concerned, Osama bin Laden is “wanted dead or alive” for the September 11 outrages. The phrase harked back to a bygone Texan age when a lawman’s strong hunch […]

GOLF Martin Gillingham and Andy Capostagno Details of thing being reviewed Next year’s President’s Cup is poised to become the first South African sporting victim of last week’s terror attacks in the United States. Sunday’s decision to postpone next week’s Ryder Cup until next September is almost certain to create a knock-on effect with the […]

The slowdown in the global economy could have positive effects for South Africa in the long term Mungo Soggot and Stefaans Brmmer The global recession that is likely to follow last week’s terror attacks on the United States will hit the South African economy in the short term. But economists say changed global conditions could […]

Julia Finch and Jill Treanor The full financial toll of last week’s terrorist attacks started to become apparent this week as a stream of big companies across Europe and the United States warned of sharp falls in sales and profits. The deluge of bad corporate news from more than 50 companies in the US alone […]

JULIAN BORGER, EWEN MACASKILL, Washington | Friday AS far as President George W Bush is concerned, Osama bin Laden is “wanted dead or alive” for the September 11 outrages. The phrase harked back to a bygone Texan age when a lawman’s strong hunch would have been enough to dispatch a posse on the fugitive’s trail, […]

Mail & Guardian reporter The development of the wind-up radio moved clockwork from the realm of children’s toys to the adult world. But a team at Technikon Witwatersrand intends to take wind-up power into the electronic age, with a project that should eventually result in a computer powered by a spring. Chris Bradum is manager […]

Buddy Maroun’s speed brigade just seems to keep rolling and even a 62kg burden might not be enough to prevent All Will Be Well taking a turn in the winner’s enclosure in Saturday’s Turffontein feature, the R125000 CT Brand Handicap over 1000m. The Badger Land gelding rounded off his seventh year with a gutsy win […]

channel vision Robert Kirby There can never be adequate description of the events last week in New York. Anyone with a television set will have seen the devastation as it occurred, watched the terrified people, heard the first witnesses. This was not second-hand, not a recording of some engagement of the day before. It was […]

There is a growing malaise in higher education, and it is damaging core academic functions. David Macfarlane reports Pessimistic about their academic futures, stressed in their jobs, and oppressed by newly bureaucratic modes of management, significant numbers of academics are opting out, or trying to. This is leaving tertiary institutions seriously stretched in their ability […]

Maggie Davey recalls the tragic “glamour” of war In the south of Uzbekistan the old Soviet railroad ran alongside the Afghanistan border for a stretch. Since the late 1800s after the Russian conquest of Tashkent and Samarkand, this railroad system, with the Transcaspian system, fed central Asia with both soldiers and the humdrum requirements of […]

AN Mpumalanga man found his brother-in-law’s decapitated body on a riverbank on Wednesday, just two months after he disappeared, police reported on Thursday. Michael Mgwenya of Blinkwater Farm, near White River, was fishing when he saw a large object wrapped in green cloth on the edge of the river. “He unwrapped the cloth and found […]