The sole tourist venture permitted in Namibia’s normally arid Skeleton Coast has just opened for business Angus Begg ‘Remember to paddle when the waters reach us,” said Hunter Davies, noted English columnist and author of 40 books. He was seated in his bed in the dining room of a rather upmarket tented camp on Namibia’s […]
Hypertext has had a huge effect on creative writing, pushing it to places it has been trying to go for decades Karlin Lillington When Apple decided to supply a copy of a little program called Hypercard on all Macintosh computers back in the 1980s, it prepared the way for what would become the Web’s most […]
world Mercedes Sayagues President Robert Gabriel Mugabe this week articulated his vision of Zimbabwe in the new millennium: one redolent with the stale air of Albania under the paranoid Enver Hoxha, the Stalinist who led his country into extreme isolation and penury during the Cold War – a country cut off from the rest of […]
Cameron Duodu LETTER FROM THE NORTH In 1992 I was in Abuja, Nigeria, to cover former president FW de Klerk’s first official visit to Nigeria. As I sat down to face De Klerk and his officials at the news conference, I wondered whether they fully realised the historic importance of the visit. Nigeria had played […]
Jubie Matlou The government has adopted a two-pronged policy towards land reform, namely land restitution and land redistribution. This policy is designed to reverse land ownership patterns that took shape following the Land Act of 1913, which saw 87% of the most arable land given to a ruling minority, and the remaining 13% to the […]
Internationally and locally the term ‘the art of shopping’ has been given new meaning Kathryn Smith The Pet Shop Boys spelt it out for us: “S.H.O.P.P.I.N.G. – We’re shopping.” Malls, fleamarkets, boutiques, 24-hour garage shops – it really doesn’t matter. According to CNN, the Chinese government recently declared a seven-day shopping holiday. Wanting to appear […]
Shaun de Waal CDs OFTHEWEEK Compay Segundo will be familiar to lovers of the Cuban music brought to international attention by the Buena Vista Social Club CDs and documentary. In case you’ve forgotten, he’s the nonagenarian who smokes those big fat cigars. The first singer to record a 78 in Cuba (in 1934), he was […]
Shaun de Waal MOVIE OFTHEWEEK The phantasmagoric imagination of Tim Burton seamlessly combines the adult sensibility of the horror tale and the cartoony delights of a children’s story, using a fairytale form to deal with death, destruction and the rest of the darker side of the human psyche. It is this vision that provides Burton’s […]
Communities near state forests are upset about not being consulted about proposed sales Fiona Macleod The government’s multimillion-rand sale of commercial state forests could literally go up in flames if the rights of the rural communities who own the land where the forests are growing continue to be ignored. Critics say threats of the forests […]
Angry residents in the Northern Province are threatening to take action over delays in land claim settlements, reports Jaspreet Kindra Land claimants in the Northern Province are threatening to boycott the local government elections, and have joined other claimants across the country in threatening “Zimbabwe-style” invasions. The disgruntled claimants have found an unlikely ally in […]