UGANDAN police on Friday announced that they made the first arrest, of a Ugandan man, in connection with the 1999 murder by suspected Rwandan Hutu extremists in Bwindi National Park of eight western tourists and a Ugandan guide. “He is part of the group that attacked Bwindi and we are still following up some clues […]
SENIOR South African figures slammed the United States Thursday for threatening to boycott a United Nations conference on racism, and condemned the “evasive” language of draft declarations. National Assembly speaker Frene Ginwala, attending a preparatory conference in Cape Town, said she found it unacceptable that the United States, which guaranteed freedom of speech in its […]
MARIANNE MERTEN, Cape Town | Friday THE Cape High Court this week delivered one of South Africa’s first rulings on ethical and accountable conduct by state officials when it slammed as unconstitutional the actions by two state advocates in prosecuting the 1996 murder of Cape gang boss Rashaad Staggie. Cape Deputy Judge President Jeanette Traverso […]
KHADIJA MAGARDIE, Johannesburg | Friday A RECENTLY released book on the Sharpeville massacre looks set to create waves in academic and political circles. The controversial findings in An Ordinary Atrocity, by University of the Witwatersrand academic Philip Frankel, include the claim that poor planning skills and “quixotic elements” within the ranks of the organisers, the […]
THE Mail & Guardian is one of only three national weekly newspapers to have posted significant year-on-year circulation increases in the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) certificate issued on August 2. The declining circulation figures for most urban daily and weekly newspapers reveal one thing: South Africans are reading less. Three print publications have […]
THE original recording of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, composed 62 years ago by a South African who died in poverty without royalties, is to be released again to benefit his family. Versions of the song by Solomon Linda will be recorded by top South African groups Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the Elite Swingsters and released […]
LIBYA on Friday condemned the militant activities of the Philippines Muslim insurgent Abu Sayyaf guerrillas — who last held South African couple Monique and Carel Strydom hostage — and said they must be “crushed.” Salem Adam, Libya’s ambassador to Manila described the Abu Sayyaf as a group of bandits and ruled out any further negotiations […]
KENYAN police said on Friday they are following up clues in the murder of a member of parliament in Nairobi as it emerged that robbery was unlikely to have motivated the killing. Tony Ndilinge, MP for the ruling Kenya African National Union (Kanu) party representing Kilome constituency in the southern Makueni district, was killed on […]
STEFAANS BRMMER and MUNGO SOGGOT, Johannesburg | Friday TELKOM pressed criminal charges this week against a controversial security company accused of colluding with Bheki Langa, the former number three at the parastatal who resigned last month — on the same day the Mail & Guardian broke a story on his alleged collusion with Telkom contractors. […]
HUMAN rights deteriorated in Namibia over the past year, the Namibian Society for Human Rights (NSHR) said in its annual report, released on Tuesday, noting slight improvements in two regions. “Widespread and systematic acts and/or statements manifesting or inciting racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance were monitored throughout the period under consideration,” it said. […]
The mystery shareholder in Beige who is now trying to get his money back after suspected fraud and theft was uncovered, is an entrepreneur who sold his property development business last year and bought a well-stocked game farm. The small-time private investor, Chris Schutte, had converted the bulk of his investment portfolio into cash just […]
For these bikers, happiness is a fast bike, writes Leila Amanpour Bikers and Hell’s Angels wannabes, usually associated with white culture, were never a popular sight in Soweto. Even now, some Sowetans regard bikers as the “bad guys”, but for Soweto’s number-one biker gang, the Eagles, friendship and family are paramount to their lives. For […]
Glenda Daniels The tripartite alliance is balanced on a knife-edge as talks deadlocked this week between the African National Congress and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) over the government’s privatisation policies. Cosatu says it will engage in a two-day strike on August 29 and 30 with a build-up of half-day strikes and […]
Plans to develop a perlemoen farm in a biosphere reserve have been met with objections Barry Streek A decision by the national and Western Cape governments to allow a perlemoen (abalone) farm in the pristine Pringle Bay area, located in the buffer zone of the country’s only United Nation-recognised biosphere, has triggered strong criticism from […]
Thuli Nhlapo visits Johannesburg hospital, where male and female patients are forced to share a ward The CEO of Johannesburg hospital has confirmed that “at times, especially in winter”, the hospital puts patients of the opposite sex in the same ward. “We have a huge number of patients in this hospital. Currently we have a […]
Jeremy Cronin writes (July 20) that the “key achievement” of the South African Communist Party was to rethink the communist project. The seminal work in this regard was Joe Slovo’s Has Socialism Failed? (1990) which argued as Cronin puts it that the “key weakness in the Soviet system was a tragic undermining of democracy”. Cronin […]
Peter Kingston Here’s a whopping conundrum. For eight years you’ve been toiling on your thesis about the British post-war far left, as it happens and you’re within a spit of the doctorate. The examiners want you to rejig the thesis introduction and resubmit it. On the other hand, a song you’ve written for your band […]
Alun Munslow Over the years the practice of history has witnessed a good many shifts and turns. Since the 1960s, for example, the discipline has experienced a social science turn, a cliometric or statistics turn, a women’s history turn, a cultural history turn and so on. These are not fads. Each has developed and still […]
The Mail &Guardian is one of only three national weekly newspapers to have posted significant year-on-year circulation increases in the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) certificate issued on August 2. The declining circulation figures for most urban daily and weekly newspapers reveal one thing: South Africans are reading less. Of course there are always […]
Martin Gillingham South Africa’s athletics selectors have performed a remarkable volte face and secretly invited top 400m runner Arnaud Malherbe to join the team in Edmonton. Last week’s Mail & Guardian reported that South Africa would be travelling to Canada without a specialist relay squad. The men’s 4x400m quartet is one of South Africa’s few […]
REVIEW David Shapshak Motorola v.8088 The best thing about Motorola phones, a friend who lives in the United States and cherishes his tells me, is that they come apart when you drop them. The kinetic energy from the fall dissipates when the parts unclip, he says. Then it puts it all back together again. I […]
Lee Elliot Major This year has seen a number of academic business schools in Europe developing e-business programmes, signalling that e-commerce has already established itself as a central component of postgraduate business degrees. The new breed of MBA students is just as likely to be taught the latest thinking on e-strategies, e-marketing and e-technology as […]
There have been unprecedented gains for workers following the recent volatile industrial action around South Africa Glenda Daniels Organised labour flexed its muscles a week ago and won some far-reaching gains, including medical treatment for HIV-positive miners, training for women, narrowing of the wage gap, meal intervals, leave benefits and a commitment to minimum wages. […]
A European tour led to overseas distribution and now this local band is being remixed in Prague Adam Haupt When Moodphase 5ive released their debut album, Steady On, they won Cape Town over big time. Who could forget their phenomenal performances at this year’s Up the Creek and North Sea Jazz Festival? They also toured […]
Glenda Daniels Development studies in South Africa are to receive a major boost as Wits University prepares to launch a new postgraduate initiative in the field. “This will entail the largest development network in the country and the continent,” says Professor Belinda Bozzoli, head of social sciences, who is spearheading the project. Three faculties will […]
Paul Kirk A series of Mail & Guardian articles on corruption within the Durban Unicity Municipality has resulted in an investigation being launched into a senior council official to stop employees being “subject to trial through the media”. Felix Dlamini, the municipal manager of the city, promised to investigate whether acting CEO Sandile Thusi held […]
Nawaal Deane Next week the Johannesburg Bar will decide who gets custody of its library the majority of its members who have fled the city centre to Sandton or the small group who are sticking it out downtown. It will be the final round of an epic struggle over the future of South Africa’s most […]
Ben Summers The Internet may be the most powerful advance in technology of recent years, but the past has never been more easily revisited. Nostalgia has never been so much fun. Witness the toys of your childhood for example, such as Mr Potato Head. In production since 1952, Mr Potato Head had a resurgence of […]
The aim of education should not be merely to reproduce things such as family and society as they are at present, but to use our energies to generate something better, argues Donald Moerdijk Coline Serreau is a feminist film director whose work deserves more attention than it has so far received. In a series of […]
analysis Dianne Black Richard*, a part-time employee of very long standing, had been steadily losing weight and suffering from recurrent bouts of illness. When he told me that he had had swollen glands for weeks and they would not go down despite the medication he had been receiving, I didn’t have to be a physician […]
analysis Rembrandt Klopper Soon after Afrikaners handed power to the black majority in 1994 curious anecdotal reports emanating from black communities in the greater Durban region suggested that instead of being stigmatised by black youths as the language of the oppressor, Afrikaans had a surprisingly positive image. According to these anecdotal reports, increasing numbers of […]
Jaspreet Kindra The African National Congress national executive committee (NEC) meeting at the weekend is expected to formulate a hard-hitting stance on the United States’s threats to boycott the United Nations conference on racism to be held in Durban at the end of this month. The US has raised concerns about the inclusion of reparations […]