NETWATCH For a taste of network-based applications, go to www.desktop. com, an innovative “graphical Webtop” that lets you launch applications and install links to your favourite websites. Tools include a file manager, a text editor (Deskpad), a to-do list and a calculator. If your name is Scott McNealy (boss of Sun Microsystems, who advocates this […]

Stefaans Brmmer South African and Italian police documents in the Mail &Guardian’s possession reveal shocking details of “mafia kingpin” Vito Palazzolo’s chequered career. Palazzolo, arrested last week for “lying” in his 1994 South African citizenship application, has been branded one of seven top Sicilian mafia leaders worldwide by the United States FBI. He is wanted […]

out on racism Marianne Merten A Cape soldier is being court-martialled this week on charges dating back to events three years ago when he and a colleague spoke out about racism in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). Staff Sergeant Herman Pheiffer is charged with four counts of being absent without leave (Awol) between […]

David Robbins At the last annual general meeting of the South African Universities Vice- Chancellors’ Association (Sauvca), outgoing chair Dr Mamphela Ramphele declared that the various transformations within the association added up to “an amazing achievement”. Ramphele also remarked that CEO Piyushi Kotecha, a driving force behind much of the transformation processes, had inherited a […]

Laurie Anderson has a new take on Moby Dick. She tells Renaud Machart all about it I caught up with Laurie Anderson in Charleston, South Carolina, in June. She was having breakfast at the hotel where she and her entourage were staying during the Spoleto Festival, an event that the Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti […]

EGYPTIAN leaders are furious at suggestions a co-pilot intentionally crashed Flight 990 in a suicide plunge and are struggling to keep the affair from escalating into a diplomatic wrangle with Washington. The affair threatened to widen into a rift between Muslims and the West as Egyptians voiced anger at “culturally ignorant” US officials who hinted […]

Steven Friedman WORM’S EYE VIEW Trevor Ngwane makes an unlikely national trend. Ngwane is a Johannesburg councillor who was suspended from the African National Congress because he criticised the city’s iGoli 2002 plan, which includes privatising and commercialising public assets. Since Ngwane is hardly a household name, and union or South African Communist Party leaders […]

sting Heather Hogan Juan Uys, leader of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, was arrested by the child protection unit (CPU) in Pretoria last week after a man made a statement claiming Uys was dealing in child pornography and prostituting under-aged boys. Uys registered as a candidate in 1999 election but failed to pay the registration […]

courts be merged? SERGEANT AT THE BAR This column raised the issue of relationship between the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal during the watch of Dullah Omar over the Ministry of Justice. Now, as appeared from a report in last week’s Mail & Guardian, the new minister, Penuell Maduna is treating the […]

still warm Neil Manthorp Cricket In ancient Muslim culture a man was required to marry his brother’s widow, in the event of his death, of course, within a month. Not much time for grieving, let alone getting to know each other. To those outside the culture, the practice might even seem a little crude. There […]