Staff Reporter

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 […]

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 […]

ABOUT 208 000 Malawians still suffering the after effects of devastating floods and drought earlier this year will soon receive about 1 000 tons of food from the World Food Programme . The food – which included maize, beans and salt – had been fortified with micronutrients and would benefit communities from seven districts in […]

Cadres appear to have sold themselves for 30 pieces of silver NO blows BARRED Sipho Seepe The 1994 democratic election brought to an end centuries of racial and colonial domination of the continent. Credit is due to the men and women who defied and overcame extreme repression and dehumanisation. They heroically suffered mental and physical […]

Ten students from disadvantaged communities recently won bursaries totalling R2,1-million to enable them to study at Malaysia’s Multimedia University. Thintana Communications, a foreign consortium, awarded the bursaries and has committed more than R120-million over five years to projects like Unitele, aimed at improving maths and technology skills in South Africa. Telkom SA and Thintana now […]

Bongani Majola At the beginning of last year Morgan Motshabi and Sphiwe Gumbi had never sat in front of a computer. By the beginning of this year, they had qualifications as computer-assisted engineers and had landed good jobs in the drawing office of Bateman Engineering Ltd. A one-year computer-assisted draughting programme at the African Academy […]

In the bewildering days after Tuesday, I felt anger against the US’s self-righteous proclamations, overlaid with a religious veneer. How would five decades of US atrocities around the world, I asked people, compare to Tuesday’s atrocity? What about a look at the less respectable things America has done over the past 50 years, to see […]

food Valentine Cascarino At first I was convinced it was a hangover that triggered the feeling I was back in Paris. But when I returned to the newly established Congolese Restaurant in Yeoville two weeks later, French tourists dining with me felt the same way. With kwasa kwasa music constantly vibrating in the background, the […]

Kabul | Thursday THOUSANDS of terrified Afghans have begun to flood into Pakistan, fleeing the twin spectres of famine and war haunting their homeland. Despite Pakistan’s attempts to close its long border with Afghanistan, at least 15 000 refugees have made it into Pakistan in the last week alone. Tens of thousands more are desperately […]

Johannesburg | Thursday THE government will not be able to hold back the Medical Research Council’s report on Aids mortality in South Africa for much longer due to pressure for the paper to be released, the MRC said on Thursday. MRC representative Merle May said: “They can’t sustain the pressure. The people want the report.” […]

MPUMALANGA and Northern Province will select their best female farmers over the next two days, who will then vie for the national Female Farmer of the Year awards later this year. Mpumalanga’s female farmer of the year will be announced on Thursday, while Northern Province’s will be announced on Friday. Winners in the provincial competitions […]

ZAMBIAN President Frederick Chiluba next week will launch his party’s campaign and officially introduce his successor to the electorates. “We will have a mammoth rally on September 29 in the Copperbelt,” said George Chulumanda, a member of the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) campaign team. The fast-growing Zambian opposition, the Forum for Democracy and […]

EIGHTEEN Northern Province hospital workers appeared in the Ramokgopa magistrate’s court on Wednesday in connection with stealing medicine and hospital supplies. The seven nurses, five assistant pharmacists, five general workers and an ambulance driver from Botlokwa Hospital in Soekmekaar, 50 km north of Pietersburg, were not asked to plead on charges of possession of stolen […]

JULIETTE HOLLIER-LAROUSSE, Nairobi | Thursday THE Eritrean government has finally taken tough action against its loudest critics by jailing seven former top officials who have expressed dissent since May and by suspending private media. “It’s a spectacular clamp-down,” said a western source in Asmara, noting that the action was taken while the world was busy […]

THIRTY Mpumalanga primary school children are pushing a go-cart for a gruelling 2 000 km from Komatipoort to Cape Town as part of an crime awareness campaign. The 18-day race started at 7am on Monday and the children were headed for Middelburg on Wednesday. The children hope to reach the mother city on October 6. […]

Harare | Thursday A ZIMBABWEAN white farmer and 30 of his labourers have been formally charged in court with murder after violence when his land was invaded at the weekend, the government press reported on Thursday. John Bibby (70) had initially been accused of inciting violence and being an accessory to murder before the murder […]

A NORTHERN Province man who allegedly stabbed his estranged common-law wife just moments after appearing in court for violating a protection order against him, was remanded in custody on Wednesday. Lazarus Sirovheli (36) of Madzhatsha village in Dzanani, near Thohoyandou, was not asked to plead on an attempted murder charge in the Dzanani Magistrate’s Court. […]

Washington | Wednesday THE United States has reached out to Cuba and Sudan, two countries it deems “state sponsors of terrorism,” as it moves to build a global anti-terror coalition after last week’s strikes, the State Department said on Tuesday. Secretary of State Colin Powell called Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail on Monday to discuss […]

SOUTH Africa is designing a “very comprehensive security strategy” for the Earth Summit in Johannesburg next year, an organiser said on Tuesday. The environmental summit is expected to attract more than 50 000 delegates, including close to more than 100 heads of state and government. Johannesburg World Summit Company head Moss Mashishi told a parliamentary […]

A 17-year-old Egyptian was sentenced on Tuesday to three years in prison for “debauchery with men” in connection with the trial of 52 people on gay sex charges, a judicial source said. Mahmud Abdel Fatah, whose sentencing was based on confessions made during interrogation, will also serve three years probation, the sources said. The trial […]

THE bodies of a Chinese businessman and his wife were pulled from an abandoned Northern Province mine on Tuesday afternoon. The couple are thought to have been hijacked and murdered last week before being dumped in the 30-metre-deep mine at Burgersdorp near Tzaneen. The couple may have been hijacked on the road between Hoedspruit and […]

Johannesburg | Tuesday A South African Hindu woman who lives in New York has started wearing a crucifix around her neck for fear of victimisation in the aftermath of last week’s attacks on the United States, a newspaper reported Monday. Kamshana Singh (26) who works as an au pair in the city, told the Johannesburg-based […]

THE cultivation of qat (a mildly narcotic shrub, Catha edulis) is said to be expanding at an alarming rate in the northern Tigray State. Plots previously used for the cultivation of cereals and horticultural produce were now being used to grow qat, the pro-government Walta Information Centre reported on 14 September. Walta quoted a local […]

Cape Town | Wednesday ARSONISTS attacked the offices of a Cape Town-based Muslim organisation early on Wednesday, possibly as a result of the attacks on the United States, an organisation representative said. Muslim Judicial Council secretary general Achmat Sedick said petrol was poured on the double front doors of the building and set alight at […]

Harare | Wednesday JOURNALISTS Mduduu Muthutuu and Collin Chiwanza, photojournalist Urgurnia Mauluka and their driver, all staff of the independent Daily News newspaper in Zimbabwe, were attacked by so-called war veterans on September 17, 2001. According to reports from the Daily News, the journalists — in the company of collegues from other Harare newspapers — […]

A TOTAL of 1 101 South African prisoners died of HIV/Aids in the first seven months of this year, an increase of 328% over the same period last year, Correctional Services Minister Ben Skosana said on Tuesday. Documentation provided by Skosana during a briefing of journalists and diplomats at Parliament showed that the number of […]

ABOUT 250 pigs have died from a mysterious disease that has hit parts of the Southern Province of Zambia, a veterinary officer said. The disease broke out three weeks ago a veterinary officer, Panel Nyimba told state radio. People in the affected areas have been advised to stop eating pork since veterinary officers do not […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN & SAKHILE MOKOENA, Nelspruit | Tuesday MPUMALANGA’S sleepy capital Nelspruit intends creating a red light district as part of an initiative to regulate the region’s growing sex trade. Council representative Delia Oosthuizen confirmed that all six escort agencies in the city had been ordered to immediately move their operations into the central business […]