Thebe Mabanga TELEVISION The sport-orientated e.tv doccie-soap The Summit this week began a second, 13-week season with swagger and grace as the spotlight fell on dance sport. The previous season focused on boxing and kept 420 000 viewers glued to their screens each week. “In this series, we look at dance sports as a popular […]
BRITISH Royal Engineers have defused a 112.5 kilogram bomb in the northern Sierra Leonean town of Kambia, state radio reported on Thursday. The bomb was discovered by the Sierra Leone army in Kambia, about 80 kilometres north of Freetown, after the town was evacuated by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels following a disarmament pact. The […]
Sechaba ka’Nkosi A retired public prosecutor from the Johannesburg Magistrate Courts’ traffic division has launched a lone crusade against wheel clamping and fining at shopping malls. Roy Welsh has embarked on a mission to put the two practices on trial, believing that they violate motorists’ constitutional rights to a free and fair trial. He is […]
Glenda Daniels The Department of Labour has slammed employers for using “racist assumptions” as excuses not to hire black people and to test prospective employees for HIV/Aids. In the latest Department of Labour equity report, 31% of employers cited HIV/Aids as a barrier to implementing equity. The equity legislation was formulated by the government to […]
Peta Lee She-Mail Ever dropped a pumpkin from a respectable height and watched it splatter into mushy pieces on concrete? That’s more or less what happens to babies and toddlers who aren’t strapped into car seats during an accident. “They look just like smashed pumpkins,” says Maxine Hall, general manager of Durban’s Amahosp Medical Rescue […]
If a political party is intent on posing as a paragon of virtue it would be wise to behave like one. The Democratic Alliance has been prone to postures of this kind. Yet, for the second time in the six months since it took power in the city of Cape Town, it has been found […]
POLICE in Nigeria’s economic capital Lagos have taken into care 16 children aged from one-and-a-half to nine and are questioning a businesswoman suspected of trafficking in children. The children were found by police late on Tuesday packed into a mini-bus in Lagos. Police had taken the children to a juvenile welfare centre in the city. […]
A lawyer’s letter has revealed how Umgeni Water tried to cover up its illegal activities Paul Kirk The Mail & Guardian has obtained documentary proof that a cash-strapped parastatal organisation, Umgeni Water, has illegally tapped the telephones of serving and past senior employees as well as members of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ […]
Debi Diedericks ‘Have you ever driven a car on a flat piece of land as fast as you can blindfolded?” Obie Oberholzer asks. I shake my head. “The longest I’ve lasted was four minutes.” That is the spirit of famous South African photographer Obie Oberholzer whose work work will be on exhibit at the Standard […]
Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION Here you are one evening, an ordinary husband, chatting with your neighbour’s husband on the pavement outside your house. Suddenly, around the corner comes an SABC television cameraman. He don’t say nuttin’, he don’t plant ‘taters he just keep his camera rolling along. Then he piss off hastily out of sight. A […]
A handwriting expert has confirmed that some of the petition lists had been entirely composed by the same person Mungo Soggot The office of Peter Marais, the Democratic Alliance mayor of Cape Town, has been presiding over a vote-rigging exercise to have two prominent streets named after former presidents FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela. […]
A Namibian policeman is to be charged with murder and attempted murder after shooting two South Africans, killing one and wounding the other. Namibian police representative Chief Inspector Hofni Hamufungu said charges had been laid against the policeman but declined to release his name. The policeman apparently opened fire last Thursday on Bloemfontein shop-fitter Manuel […]
Roshila Pillay Senior academic staff at Vista University are furious about the extravagance of one of the campus rectors, who commutes between Pretoria and Bloemfontein at a cost of about R1 700 a trip. Professor Talvin Schultz, the principal both of Vista’s Bloemfontein campus and the Thaba Nchu College of Education (which is now managed […]
A recent court ruling challenges us to consider how environmental rights should be balanced against socio-economic rights Jenny Hall, Robyn Stein and Claire Tucker At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, poverty “alleviation” was recognised as a key to achieving “sustainable development”. When we host Rio+10 next year, this issue will, no doubt, be an […]
Steven Friedman worm’s eye view For a while the African National Congress leadership has been eager to use its majority in Parliament to impose its will. In the public accounts and safety and security committees, the ANC has used its votes to ensure that the will of its leaders is served. Outside the house, groups […]
Three days before the 1998 Tour de France a little-known team assistant, Willy Voet, was stopped by customs officials on the Franco-Belgian border. What they found in the back of his car stunned the world of professional cycling. This is his story Willy Voet was born in the Belgian town of Hofstade on July 4 […]
Thebe Mabanga The legacy of South Africa’s literary icon Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda, known internationally as Zakes, is about to be further entrenched when his first adult novel Ways of Dying takes to the stage as a musical called Love and Green Onions. The novel has already been successfully dramatised by Lara Foot Newton in […]
A FORMER project consultant of the controversial Mpumalanga Development Corporation (MDC) appeared for the second time in the Nelspruit District Court on Monday on fraud charges amounting to R1-million. The case against Mafa Obed Maseko, 44, of Kamagugu near Nelspruit was postponed and he is out on R5_000 bail. He has not yet been asked […]
Roshila Pillay The rector and vice-chancellor of Vaal Technikon, Aubrey Mokadi, has allegedly been abusing technikon funds. Senior technikon staff and students frustrated with Mokadi’s running of the institution are accusing the rector of victimisation, mismanagement and nepotism. This is not the first time the rector stands accused on these charges. In 1998 the Mail […]
Sam Moiloa, Johny Mphou and Trevor Ngwane a second look When Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Ronnie Kasrils gave his budget speech on May 15, he dropped a bombshell that few listeners noticed. Kasrils endorsed what many environmentalists say is the single most damaging attack on nature in world history, the Three Gorges dam […]
Paul Kirk Petrol dealers in the coastal areas of KwaZulu-Natal are gearing up to give the cold shoulder to hot petrol. At the end of this month the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) will convene a meeting to discuss what is to be done about hot, warm and cold petrol. As petrol heats it […]
Garry Mulholland CD OFTHEWEEK The real clue to What the Manics Did Next had nothing to do with launching their sixth album in Cuba, nor their much-hyped return to a revolutionary punk-rock agenda. Nope, the real clue was tucked away on the B-side of last year’s limited-edition, back-to-basics, number one single Masses Against the Classes, […]
A WHITE farmer whose land came close to being expropriated in March for the resettlement of a black community formally accepted an improved offer for it on Tuesday, government officials said. Chief land claims commissioner Wallace Mgoqi said that cattle farmer Willem Pretorius had agreed to sell his farm in Mpumalanga for R1 285_000 ($160_625). […]
Jane Martinson in New York Struggling dot.com enter- prises face a new competitor in the battle for online sales the United States government. Newly published research shows that the world’s largest online retailer is not a former bookseller but the administration itself, which sold $3,6-billion worth of goods last year. In contrast, Amazon previously regarded […]
Letters to the best man Chez Uhuru 228 Musgrave Road iThekwini To: Dr Essop Pahad The Presidency Union Buildings Tshwane Dear Dr Pahad, This morning I awoke in a bath of perspiration, emotionally exhausted after a nightmare of diabolical proportions. I have been so troubled by these visions from hell that I have been unable […]
Tom Jaine Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris (Doubleday) First Chocolat, then Blackberry Wine, now oranges. If the next is called Walnut, Joanne Harris will have the full dessert. A preoccupation with food makes her list of child characters in this latest bulletin from the French countryside read like an index to a […]
whipping boy The scintillating triumphs of three-year-olds Hoeberg and Badger’s Drift last weekend has consolidated their positions at the top of the betting boards for the Durban July, but another of their generation could stake a claim in the R500 000 Grade 1 Gold Challenge over a mile at Clairwood Park on Saturday. Victory for […]
EVIDENCE WA KA NGOBENI, Johannesburg| Friday THE disgraced former chair of the Central Energy Fund (CEF) awarded the head of the state oil company an annual salary of R1,2-million without following proper civil service procedures. Keith Kunene gave Renosi Mokate, CEO of the CEF, the R100_000 a month salary without consulting the parastatal’s board or […]
The men in white were under scrutiny as Pakistan squared the series against England Peter Robinson If Pakistan are around, can a row be far behind? Not likely. Within hours of Pakistan’s 108-run victory in a remarkable Old Trafford Test on Monday, British television viewers were being treated to pictures of Waqar Younis allegedly scratching […]
David Shapshak Someone with a sense of irony must have chosen “experience” as the buzzword for Microsoft’s new range of software. The world’s largest software maker may have a monopoly in computer operating systems and Internet browsers but it has had a chequered history in launching the new versions of these. The “experience” of new […]
Barry Streek Far-ranging and costly steps have been taken by the government to improve South Africa’s crimi-nal justice system. They include the introduction of a computerised system to link police stations, prisons and courts; the construction and upgrading of magistrates’ courts; and reforms of the courts to make them user-friendly. “The reason is to bring […]
A cash settlement worth more than R60-million puts paid to the public’s right to know if the third cellular licence was awarded fairly Stefaans Brmmer The out-of-court settlement between Cell C and Nextcom has resolved a tug-of-war that wreaked havoc on investor confidence but the deal has likely also deprived the public of the right […]