SIX scantily-clad girls caused a massive tail-back on the beach-side road in Egypt’s Mediterranean city of Alexandria as drivers slowed down to gawp as they strolled along in their bathing costumes, Al-Wafd newspaper reported on Sunday. Police tried to restore order by escorting the girls into a shop and asking them to put some clothes […]
CARNAGE continued on the Nigerian roads this weekend when 61 people died in two separate accidents as buses plunged off bridges, witnesses and reports said. Forty-nine people were killed and 23 were recovering in hospital on Sunday after an overnight bus, travelling from Lagos to the northern city of Kano, blew a tyre and plunged […]
MORE than 170 Tanzanian Muslims were being held in police cells on Saturday after being arrested on Friday while protesting the jailing of a preacher convicted of disparaging Christianity, police said. Dar es Salaam Regional Police Commander Alfred Tibaigana said that 145 men and 26 women were taken into custody during the demonstration. He added […]
PETER CUNLIFFE-JONES, Ibadan, Nigeria | Sunday THE borders of modern-day Africa were drawn up in Europe, creating states that were politically illegitimate from the start, political scientists here say. The history of the slave trade and the negative impact of colonialism — issues which Washington wants kept off the agenda of the UN racism conference […]
London | Saturday ZIMBABWE has decreed that most of its soldiers killed in fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) be buried in the jungle rather than come home in body bags, according to an officer quoted in a British newspaper on Saturday. “Top officers have instructed that a greater majority of those who […]
A WESTERN animal welfare body urged the Kenyan government on Wednesday to block a Canadian mining company from building a ship-loading facility on the Kenyan coast, warning it could endanger local marine life. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) cautioned that Tiomin Resources Inc. of Canada would cause serious environmental damage in Shimoni, a […]
The Mail & Guardian’s status as South Africa’s fastest-growing quality newspaper was confirmed this week with the release of the latest All Media Product Survey (Amps).The M&G now boasts 230 000 readers, according to Amps 2001A. This represents a 16,1% growth in readership over the previous survey. The M&G has shown a circulation growth of […]
NIGERIA plans to work with authorities in Africa and Europe to bring back home trafficked women and children, President Olusegun Obasanjo said on Wednesday. Obasanjo was speaking at meeting at the presidential villa here with a group of 32 young women, and one young man, who were returned to Nigeria last week from Guinea. Speaking […]
PROMOTERS have canned hip-hop megastar Lauryn Hill from a tour of South Africa later this month because she failed to show up for concerts in the United States and Jamaica. Eargasm Entertainment representative Melanie Ramjee said Hill did not appear at the New York leg of the Black August concert tour which took place on […]
NIGERIAN police have arrested the outlaw leader of a banned militant organisation 20 months after he was declared wanted following bloody riots in which hundreds of people died. Police arrested Ganiyu Adams, the leader of the most hard line faction of the banned Odua People’s Congress (OPC) on Tuesday. Adams was arrested as he led […]
A COLOUR calendar depicting the gruesome vigilante killing of a suspected armed robber hit the streets of Lagos on Thursday and was enjoying brisk sales, witnesses said. Shoppers at the popular Oshodi market jostled with each other to buy the calendar, bearing a picture of the killing on Wednesday last week, when vigilantes crucified and […]
London | Sunday PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe aims to expel all white farmers from Zimbabwe before next year’s elections, the Sunday Telegraph reported, citing a secret document which outlines the plans. The British broadsheet said a secret order from Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party to self-styled war veterans outlines the political goals of the campaign being waged against […]
Johannesburg | Saturday SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki accused the country’s main trade union federation on Friday of joining hands with rightists and using workers as cannon fodder. His comments in the Internet publication “ANC Today” follow a sharp attack by the cabinet on Thursday on plans by the Congress of South African Trade Unions […]
THE outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Zimbabwe could enter South Africa between the Sand River and Kruger National Park where the border fence was washed away during the 1999 floods, warned Northern Province premier Ngoako Ramathlodi. He said the large stretch of fence had never been repaired. “This is cause of concern because […]
A SOUTH African national was jailed for 10 years in Perth on Thursday for importing heroin worth a million dollars ($500_000), which he carried in body packs on a flight from Johannesburg. Zamokuhie Mpumelelo Mkwanazi, a 23-year-old data entry clerk for South African Airways’ (SAA) frequent flyer program, pleaded guilty to concealing almost one kilogram […]
SOUTH Africa is beefing up patrols on the northern border with Zimbabwe after an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease there. Agriculture department chief director Emily Mogajane said troops and agriculture officials had been deployed. “We are concerned that the current turmoil in Zimbabwe would make it difficult to control the movement of infected livestock and contaminated […]
TALKS on Zimbabwe have been rescheduled for September 6 and 7, Nigeria’s ambassador to Harare said on Wednesday. Nigerian High Commissioner Wilberforce Juta, said the talks, to be hosted by Nigeria and initially planned for mid August, were delayed because of logistical hitches. The talks are aimed at seeking ways to heal strained relations between […]
EVIDENCE WA KA NGOBENI, Johannesburg | Friday MINISTER of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota this week backtracked on his decision to appoint Seth Phalatse as the new chairperson of the Armscor, the state arms procurement company, and withdrew the appointment. His turnabout followed the Mail & Guardian report last week revealing how Phalatse had admitted to taking […]
Schumacher joins Ascari in Ferrari book of greats, writes Richard Williams Tradition was not the first thing on Michael Schumacher’s mind when he signed his contract with the Scuderia Ferrari back in 1996. In fact it was not on his mind at all. He professed to know little and seemed to care less about the […]
Barry Streek Nearly 4 000 movements of the Earth, scientifically labelled as “seismic events”, have happened in South Africa over the past six years, 630 of them last year. But the majority of them are small and insignificant. Although one of these events recently caused a house to collapse in Welkom, in the Free State, […]
Michelle Nel “Dire Straits. Coming soon to Cape Town,” proclaims an eye-catching poster. Beneath the words is a picture of cracked mud. Does it mean the internationally acclaimed band Dire Straits is coming to South Africa, perhaps to play at a dried-out waterhole? A second look reveals the tag line: “Save water. Save the Cape.” […]
The Arab and the Jew may never solve their problems, not because the problem is insoluble, but because they seem both to be terminally disabled by the disease of ideology, both religious and nationalist in character. Ideology makes impossible any objective debate. This is Laura Stovel’s point (“A debate long overdue”, August 17). Frog-marching these […]
Ntuthuko Maphumulo The under-23 South African squad will be taking part in a four- nations tournament in Angola from August 25 to 28. The squad will be coached by Shakes Mashaba, who did well with the previous Amaglug-glug squad that went to the Olympics last year. Mashaba now has many of the previous national under-20 […]
DIAMOND giant De Beers said on Thursday that sales of rough diamonds through its Diamond Trading Company slumped 255% in the first half of 2001 to $2,62-billion. The group blamed the slowdown in the global economy for sluggish demand for polished diamonds, particularly in the United States, which had a knock-on impact on rough diamond […]
Community Projects Award Finalist: Built Environment Support Group’s Msunduzi Project Niki Moore The “little boxes” springing up in their thousands as part of the government’s low-cost housing masterplan are often a major headache for municipalities.?Services and maintenance are expensive and very often the residents can’t, or won’t, pay. When services break down, the rows of […]
Urban Renewal Award Finalist: Hout Bay River Development Michelle Nel Cape Town’s Hout Bay river is the last remaining river system linking Table Mountain to the sea that’s worth conserving as a resource of international significance. With this in mind, and against the backdrop of much abuse to both river and valley over the past […]
The Green Trust Award’s judges Mail & Guardian reporter The Green Trust Awards 2001 were judged by an independent panel of environmentalists. We would like to thank them for volunteering their time and expertise. Arend Hoogervorst runs his own environmental consultancy, Eagle Environmental, and specialises in assisting industry with environmental impact assessments and environmental management […]
Isn’t it strange… (1) When any African National Congress officials/parliamentarians/Cabinet ministers are accused of corruption, inaccurate or downright false statements, the inevitable response is that the complaint is unjustified and racist regardless of who makes the accusation? (2) We have the most advanced Constitution in the world, we are told, which makes us the envy […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota this week backtracked on his decision to appoint Seth Phalatse as the new chairperson of the Armscor, the state arms procurement company, and withdrew the appointment. His turnabout followed the Mail & Guardian report last week revealing how Phalatse had admitted to taking a $20?000 (about […]
DUMISANE LUBISI, Pietersburg | Friday NORTHERN Province has selected 23 impoverished youths who leave for Cuba on Monday to train as doctors for the next six years. The youths, who come from poor rural families, responded to a provincial health department advert in March that sought matriculants who wanted to study medicine. Over 1 000 […]
Amanda Lane replies to Matthew Krouse’s accusation that the line-up of Another One Night Stand is too white It is with a heavy heart that I write this, for it is my belief that one’s actions speak one’s truth. However, in my capacity as creative director of Another One Night Stand, I have a duty […]
Congress Mahlangu A team of consultants will undertake a number of conservation and socio-economic assessments for the Greater Addo Elephant National Park to expand the park for its growing elephant population and to realise its conservation and development objectives. The survey results are intended to attract World Bank development funding. The project, divided into four […]