Andy Capostagno looks at Sarfu’s restructuring Because there is a Test match in Dunedin this weekend there is no rugby being played in South Africa. If the restructuring of the administration of South African rugby announced earlier this week can solve that particular conundrum we’ll all be a lot happier. SA Rugby (Pty) Ltd became […]
THE Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (Apcon) said on Thursday that radio and television advertisements for tobacco and alcohol would be banned starting next year. Apcon chairman Olu Falomo said the council had also banned hoardings advertising tobacco or alcoholic beverages at sporting events. Falomo said manufacturers could sponsor sporting events but could not display […]
Nature’s laws aren’t written in English NO blows BARRED Sipho Seepe The bureaucratic, educational, criminal and justice systems in South Africa as well as commerce and industry use languages considered foreign by the majority of African people, bearing testimony to the unrelenting marginal status of African languages. The Constitution, recognising the diminished use and status […]
Byron Kennedy Since the start of this week platinum shed a further $36 per oz to touch fresh 18-month lows of $435, a far cry from the $625 that the metal commanded back in April. That translates into a 30% devaluation in three months, although the majority of that pain was effected over the past […]
Cheryl Goodenough A district municipality in KwaZulu-Natal has accused the national government of acting unconstitutionally by failing to pay revenue to district municipalities. The Uthukela district municipality lodged an urgent application in the Pietermaritzburg High Court last Friday. The matter is set down to be heard on August 13. President Thabo Mbeki and Minister of […]
THE National Society for Human Rights yesterday released the names of three more Namibian Defence Force soldiers it alleges died while fighting Unita in southern Angola last month. The NSHR statement was mainly aimed at backing up its earlier claims that eight NDF soldiers were killed in combat with Unita in July. The human rights […]
I refer to the deeply disturbing article “ANC ignores labour law” (August 3). The quotation by the African National Congress member of Parliament regarding the operations manager seems to confirm complaints from the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union of an authoritarian management style. This authoritarianism cannot but impact negatively on labour relations and […]
Mail & Guardian reporter Mail & Guardian chief photographer Ruth Motau was honoured for her work at an awards ceremony sponsored by the SABC. This is the second year the SABC acknowledged women who have made a difference in the media and 28 women were honoured last Friday. Motau received the same award last year. […]
Recent censorship allegations doing the rounds locally show how easily falsehoods are spread on the Internet David Le Page For two weeks the Internet has been the spawning ground for widespread, distorted rumours about the government’s alleged plan to institute Internet “censorship” measures, “similar to those introduced in China”. The Interception and Monitoring Bill about […]
ZIMBABWE’S President Robert Mugabe is expected to declare a general amnesty for nearly 3 000 prisoners in a bid to decongest the country’s overcrowded jails, a cabinet minister has said. Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Patrick Chinamasa said Mugabe would soon pardon 2 987 inmates to reduce the prison population, according to a cabinet […]
Selby Baqwa has thrown a strange spanner in the works of his own inquiry Mungo Soggot and Stefaans Brmmer The Office of the Public Protector has asked a star witness of the public inquiry into the arms deal to drop his civil case against the government if he wants to testify at the inquiry. The […]
Nobody could have anticipated Sharpeville a second look Humphrey Tyler So the Sharpeville massacre need not have happened. According to the Mail & Guardian (August 3) Philip Frankel, a Wits University academic, claims in his book, An Ordinary Atrocity, that it could have been avoided if, for example, there had been “proper crowd control” and […]
analysis Jayne Arnott and Helen Alexander On August 3 the Pretoria High Court declared section 20 (1) (a) of the Sexual Offences Act, which prohibits “unlawful carnal intercourse for reward”, unconstitutional. Although it still needs to be confirmed by the Constitutional Court, this ruling means that it will no longer be a crime to sell […]
CHRIS MCGREAL, Harare | Friday ZIMBABWE’S president, Robert Mugabe, is preparing to declare a state of emergency, and possibly martial law, in response to US legislation imposing sanctions on the country’s leaders because of political violence, according to a Harare newspaper. The report came amid a fresh wave of violence against white farmers and their […]
A cricketer’s body was exhumed this week to discover the true cause of death, writes Paul Kirk Tertius Bosch, fast bowler and dentist, died aged 33 from a disease that afflicts fewer than one person in 100 000 and kills just 2% of its victims. Now a series of irregularities and the preliminary results of […]
Stefaans Brmmer and Mungo Soggot Did two well-connected black empowerment firms fraudulently conspire to mislead MTN in a bid for shares? This counts among the dirtier claims that may surface when both companies go to court in an internecine battle over the cellphone company shares, said to be worth more than R200-million. The offices of […]
Arundhati Roy achieved worldwide success as a Booker Prize-winning novelist. But she has given up the glory trail to become India’s most prominent activist. She tells Madeleine Bunting why she now risks jail Arundhati Roy burst on to the Indian national stage from nowhere in 1997. A drop-out architecture student and one-time aerobics instructor, she […]
GLENDA DANIELS, Johannesburg | Friday Striking motor manufacturing workers are about to decide whether to accept intervention by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) to reach agreement on a wage deadlock. About 21 000 National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) motor manufacturing members went on strike on Monday and about 5 […]
South Africa have five Tests to get things right before they take on Australia Peter Robinson Whatever the claims of men such as Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara (not to mention wonderful bowlers like Courtney Walsh, Allan Donald and Shane Warne), it is difficult to dismiss the credentials of Steve Waugh as being simply the […]
Tara Turkington The African National Congress-controlled municipality in the Northern Cape town of De Aar failed to pay an overdue account to a law firm run by a Democratic Alliance leader in the province so the town was brought to a near standstill. The Emthanjeni municipality’s moveable assets from the traffic police’s car to the […]
ANC: Torn between two roles Does it makes sense for a party in power to continue to use the language of liberation, asks Ben Turok Many people find it anomalous that the African National Congress persists in calling itself a liberation movement when it is clearly a party in government. Some ANC leaders say it […]
MOVES led by the World Health Organisation for a global convention to cut smoking will increase poverty and strangle the economy, Malawian farm leaders were quoted as saying on Wednesday. They said that about 80% of the country’s 10 million people live in rural areas and are dependent on tobacco production. WHO is leading a […]
be crushed’ Jaspreet Kindra Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana likens the loss of workers as the restructuring of public enterprises takes place to the sacrifice of human life during the African National Congress’s struggle against apartheid. “I was just remarking that the Reconstruction and Development Programme implies rebuilding and destroying apartheid structures. There is going […]
Harrison Ndlovu In a bid to control public urinating in their neighbourhood, Hillbrow residents are imposing spot fines ranging between R10 and R50 for offenders Central Hillbrow, with its high liquor consumption and many dark alleyways, is worst affected and residents have taken it upon themselves to control the health hazard. On a wall on […]
While Numsa this week lowered its wage increase demand, motor industry employers have refused to budge Glenda Daniels Striking motor manufacturing workers are about to decide whether to accept intervention by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) to reach agreement on a wage deadlock. About 21 000 National Union of Metalworkers of South […]
MAIL & GUARDIAN chief photographer Ruth Motau has been honoured for her work at an awards ceremony sponsored by the South African Broadcasting Corporation. This is the second year the SABC acknowledged women who have made a difference in the media and 28 women were honoured last Friday. Motau received the same award last year. […]
Ngwako Modjaji Henrietta Mqokomiso, who was evicted from her house in Alexandra township in June when bulldozers demolished her home of 12 years, is being given a new house by the Gauteng Department of Housing. The Mail & Guardian reported last month that the Legal Resources Centre was preparing a legal battle on behalf of […]
A farm worker claims he was beaten by vigilantes on an executive’s hunting farm Fiona Macleod Police are investigating an alleged sjambok beating carried out by vigilante group Mapogo-A-Mathamaga on a Northern Province hunting farm owned by one of Bill Gates’s right-hand men at Microsoft. A former employee at the farm of senior Microsoft executive […]
protests Marianne Merten Students from the Cape Peninsula joined their colleagues in Soweto in protest against Afrikaans as a medium of instruction and police brutality 25 years ago. August 11 marks the 25th anniversary of the protests by pupils from Langa and Guguletu townships, which spread across the Cape Flats and prompted solidarity demonstrations by […]
ITALY has donated two billion lire (about one million dollars) to help rebuild health services in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations children’s fund Unicef said on Thursday. This brings to eight million dollars contributions so far received towards Unicef’s appeal for DRC for this year, which totals $15-million. Unicef executive director Carol […]
Possible manipulation of votes on the renaming of two streets is under scrutiny in Cape Town Marianne Merten It was an inauspicious start to the public hearings to get to the bottom of whether and how submissions on the renaming of Cape Town’s two oldest streets might have been manipulated. Inquiry chairman advocate Willem Heath […]
BODY LANGUAGE Julie Burchill If there’s one type of broad I can’t stand, it’s what I call You’re-Not-Going-Out-Dressed-Like-That feminists: older women, past the first bloom of youthful beauty perhaps, who instead of concentrating their fury on patriarchy and its evils make a second career out of attacking younger women, usually stunners or starlets of some […]