Staff Reporter

A training body has identified adult basic education as one of its priorities for social and economic upliftment Mail & Guardian Reporter The Manufacturing, Engineering and Related Services Sector Education and Training Authority (Merseta) celebrated literacy and adult learner week by handing certificates to 41 adult learners who passed the Independent Examination Board’s National Examinations […]

The government should see the newspaper as a flattering reflection on our democracy, writes Political Editor Drew Forrest ‘Why go to that right-wing rag?” was one government official’s response when told that I was moving to the Mail & Guardian. It was not untypical. There is a quite general perception not only in ruling circles […]

An activist has spent two years trying to get an Aids nappy initiative off the ground Charlene Smith Yvonne Spain has a dream of women across Southern Africa sitting at sewing machines making adult nappies for people with Aids. The final stages of Aids is a cruel, hopeless time for those ill with the virus. […]

Ngwako Modjadji A committee appointed by Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete to investigate farm attacks on farmers has been accused of being one-sided because it was not listening to farm workers’ concerns. The investigation was launched in April after farmers forwarded a complaint to Tshwete on farm attacks. The commission is to probe […]

NO blows BARRED Sipho Seepe The anti-racism conference has offered an opportunity for the world to grapple with practical measures to ensure the eradication of all forms of discrimination and accompanying injustices everywhere in the world. This should, as United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan puts it, “help to free the present and the future […]

Q&A: Andy cato Shaun de Waal Groove Armada are one of modern electronica’s most innovative and beguiling acts, with a range from the funky I See You Baby to the dreamy haze of their hit At the River both off their second album, the highly successful Vertigo. Their new album, Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub), will […]

theatre Guy Willoughby Sorrows and Rejoicings, the latest in the astonishing treasure trove of South African experience that is Athol Fugard’s corpus, is centrally concerned with exile and its consequences for the artist a pertinent theme in a country whose best creators have so often, of choice or necessity, lived overseas. Fugard’s hero is Dawid […]

Getting together to solve common problems is the African way. The rise of vigilante group Mapogo a Matamaga is rooted in this tradition, reports Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The reception afforded him by his loyal, sjambok-wielding followers would have made a royal welcome seem a gloomy affair. Horns started blaring hours before his arrival. The […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Drew Forrest has joined the Mail & Guardian as its political editor. Forrest, formerly political editor of Business Day, joined the M&G at the beginning of the month. He will drive and oversee all aspects of the newspaper’s political coverage. Forrest worked for the M&G in its earlier incarnation as The […]

Power struggles at the huge university are jeopardising distance education in South Africa David Macfarlane The future of distance education in South Africa hangs in the balance following extraordinary turmoil at Unisa this week. The shock resignation of Unisa vice-chancellor Professor Antony Melck exposes massive power struggles at the country’s largest university. Events leading to […]

The turbulent history of Durban’s Indian community is on show in two theatre productions and a photographic exhibition in the city Alexander Sudheim The World Conference against Racism provided a moment for the international community to take a long, hard look at difficult issues. The climate also provided an opportunity for local communities to reflect […]

Tara Turkington A bus operator in Kimberley has retrenched half his staff and is facing bankruptcy after an empowerment deal set up by the provincial government went sour. Sabbatha Mathiba once owned the thriving Rainbow Bus Company, ferrying commuters to and from work at the De Beers diamond mines. But now the company is in […]

obituary: christiaan barnard Surgeon Christiaan Barnard, who has died aged 78, led the surgical team that performed the first human-to-human heart transplant on December 2 to 3 1967. The operation captured public imagination around the globe, and, literally overnight, Barnard became one of the best-known people in the world. Although his achievement, courage and vision […]

Khadija Magardie Several pressure groups attending the World Conference against Racism in Durban have complained bitterly that their plight has been drowned out by the hype over the Israeli/ Palestinian impasse and the debate over reparations for slavery and colonialism. With the full title of the conference including “Racism, Xenophobia and other forms of Related […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The Pan Africanist Congress in the Eastern Cape has slammed the provincial administration for failing to spend funds earmarked for service delivery programmes in the rural areas. Speaking after the party’s Eastern Cape regional congress at the weekend, PAC leaders said the party was concerned about the provincial government’s failure to […]

Hellenic, usually very consistent, have started the season on the wrong foot Ntuthuko Maphumulo What have Hellenic done to anger the gods? That’s the question coach Steve Haupt is asking himself after a number of defeats at the beginning of the season. The Cape Town-based side, known as the “Greek gods”, are languishing near the […]

RUGBY Andy Capostagno The southern hemisphere international season is over and the Springboks came through with a record of played seven, won three, lost three, drew one. One of the best cures for a sense of inadequacy is to follow the old dictum and “pick on someone your own size”. Accordingly, it is time to […]

Comment Charles Leonard I have been mauled publicly by a 12-legged, designer-label-clad, Mother Africa-idolising, American-talking hip-hop machine. And while it was ear-glowingly embarrassing, maybe I asked for it. I am at a media conference at a casino for the first-ever “Black August” tour in South Africa a three-city tour by some of the top exponents […]

Glenda Daniels Half-a-million public service workers cast strike ballots this week in a wage dispute that masks the real tensions between labour and the state. “The wage issue is not the fundamental one here. The issues are really about human development, restructuring and retraining of staff,” says Vusi Nhlapo, president of the National Education, Health […]

Issues have emerged in Durban that will not be stopped by logical debate Comment Margaret Legum The NGO gathering at the United Nations’s World Conference against Racism was a good place to test the future in terms of ideas that will not go away. Such ideas represent movements of people that have a universal moral […]

Drew Forrest Humorous, animated, speaking in a blur, Neva Makgetla seems an improbable Svengali. Yet in the aftermath of last week’s general strike, unnamed government officials have reportedly portrayed her as the minence blanche behind the Congress of South African Trade Union’s (Cosatu) hardening anti-privatisation stance. Not everyone in the government sees the federation’s public […]

Congress Mahlangu The improvement of agricultural education will receive priority when the Association of Principals of Agricultural Colleges (Apac) an organisation representing all the agricultural colleges in this country meet with their counterparts in an international conference at the Kruger National Park next month. According to Allison van Niekerk, chairperson of Apac, the conference will […]

l According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge l If the Invader Comes by Derek Beaven l A Son of War by Melvyn Bragg l True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey l Shamrock Tea by Ciaran Carson l The Element of Water by Stevie Davies l The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer l Dogside […]

Members of the party have been accused of irregularly allocating council houses to family members Barry Streek Two new corruption scandals have rocked the Democratic Alliance in Cape Town this week, as the party battles to control the damage caused by the street renaming saga. Affidavits have surfaced alleging that a DA councillor was involved […]

Mail & Guardian reporter A library donated to the Joe Slovo squatter camp in Johannesburg was closed last month because a residents’ committee was not informed about its opening. This week supporters of the library threatened legal action against the committee if it did not allow residents access to the facility. The library was started […]

Jaspreet Kindra The Gauteng government’s proposed multibillion-rand fast train project linking Pretoria and Johannesburg to be funded largely by the private sector has a catch. Should the project fail to achieve its expected target of 60 000 passengers a day, the government will have to compensate the losses of the private sector operator in terms […]

REVIEW David Shapshak LG DVD 3251P The only problematic thing about owning an MP3s collection is that you can only play them on your computer. The highly popular music file format, which reduces an average song to a 10th its size, has taken the world by storm but playing them is very limited outside of […]

Where do we draw the line between opinion and racism when it comes to reporting? Peter Robinson Sooner or later, I suppose, it had to happen. Minister of Sport and Recreation Ngconde Balfour turned his mind away this week from trying to pick the South African cricket and rugby teams to denounce three South African […]

When given the opportunity children have a lot to say about how the government can improve their lives Nawaal Deane “People are HIV-positive you must help them, please,” says a seven-year-old girl who lives in the Free State. Another seven-year-old little girl from the Eastern Cape says: “Dear persons, Please give us medicine to make […]

Michael Hartnack in Harare President Robert Mugabe hopes this week to pull off his second great diplomatic coup of the 18-month Zimbabwean crisis: getting his neighbours to accept it stems from white ownership of prime farmland rather than from his own efforts to cling to power. President Thabo Mbeki will be among the presidents of […]

Barry Streek Former South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje would face a 10-year jail sentence in terms of a sweeping new anti-corruption law drawn up by the government. The draft Prevention of Corruption Bill, which should be tabled in Parliament by year-end, defines 17 different types of corrupt practice, including corruption in sport and the […]

As a Zionist Israeli and South African-born physician who has done humanitarian work in KaNgwane and in Gaza and Ramalla, I protest against the comparison of Zionism to racism/apartheid. I bear witness that Palestinians, Israeli citizens or not, receive care side by side with Jews in the finest Israeli hospitals and are treated with respect […]