Howard Barrell OVER A BARREL What a relief to discover that the Democratic Party may also be led by a bunch of venal, ambitious, self-serving bastards; that, in the very best traditions of politicians the world over, some of its leaders may also now know how to waken the dead when they need a few […]

Paul Trueman Arthur C Clarke may have correctly predicted the uses of orbiting satellites and artificial intelligence, but boy did he come a cropper with his notion of a video phone. In 2001: A Space Odyssey a character makes a video call home from a space station, and chats to his daughter on a huge […]

Robert Kirby THE MIRACLE RIVERS by Peter and Beverly Pickford (Southern) Any new book by Peter and Beverly Pickford raises expectations. The work of these two gifted wildlife photographers has always been of almost solitary excellence. In a market these days far more than adequately served, the Pickfords’ work remains individual and always surprising. Their […]

Fiona Macleod Aaron Mmako (39) used to sell his sculptures for a pittance on the side of the road. He knows how hard it is to flag down a tourist, and how easy it is to sell a lovingly crafted piece for a song because it is the only cash he will see for a […]

MSI Cellular, an international operator in the Khuluma 084 consortium bidding for the third cellular licence, announced on Thursday that it has won the GSM cellular licence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, now its 10th GSM licence in Africa. The DR Congo was the first African country to install a cellular network in 1986. […]

Marianne Merten Minister of Justice and Constitutional Planning Penuell Maduna failed to consult the country’s most senior judge, Chief Justice Ismail Mahomed, when he sought to extend the tenure of Judge Edwin King, the judge president of the Cape. This emerged during a week of controversy surrounding Maduna’s decision to extend Judge King’s tenure – […]

Barry Streek The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is to give an average of only R3 000 to each of the 16 700 victims of apartheid identified during its hearings. “It is very little,” TRC commissioner Hlengiwe Mkhize acknowledged this week, saying the awards would be merely “symbolic”. “It is simply an acknowledgment of their […]

Aaron Nicodemus A labour arbitrator has reinstated two top officials from the Medicines Control Council (MCC) who were ousted during a purge of the drug-regulating body’s management in March 1998. The former minister of health, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, axed the officials after the MCC’s refusal to approve clinical trials of the controversial Aids drug Virodene. But […]

God and old Nick square off in Hollywood’s latest batch of millennial thrillers, reports Brian Pendreigh Some guy visits a face-painting stall, opts for red and black and declares himself a servant of the dark side. Things go bump in the night in Maryland woods. Dead people walk the Earth and do not even know […]

terror Marianne Merten August 8 1996: Hard Livings gang boss Rashaad Staggie is lynched during a People against Gansterism and Drugs (Pagad) demonstration in the presence of police, media and emergency workers. An inquest into the death, launched when the Cape High Court trial of Pagad member Ozeer Booley collapsed last year, has been repeatedly […]