US writer and composer Paul Bowles died early Thursday at a hospital in Tangiers of cardiac arrest, medical sources said. He was 88. Bowles, who would have turned 89 next month, was hospitalized in Tangiers, where he made his home in northern Morocco, after falling into a coma because of a cardio-respiratory crisis. Bowles, a […]

Dylan Evans ALMOST LIKE A WHALE: THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES UPDATED by Steve Jones (Doubleday) Steve Jones, the lovable professor of genetics at University College, London, has re-written On the Origin of Species. His new book, Almost Like a Whale, has the same format as Darwin’s great work, right down to the chapter titles and […]

REFEREE Falla Ndoye of Senegal and assistant referee Ali Tomusange of Uganda will represent Africa at the first world club championships from January 5-14 in Brazil, the organisers said on Wednesday. Corinthians and Vasco da Gama of Brazil, Manchester United of England, Real Madrid of Spain, Al-Nasr of Saudi Arabia, Nexaca of Mexico, South Melbourne […]

Peace moves by international groups are unlikely to save the Congo ceasefire, writes Ivor Powell The international community finally moved this week to shore up the ceasefire agreements among belligerents in the Democratic Republic of Congo – but the action will almost certainly prove far too little and pathetically late. With the Lusaka ceasefire agreement […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

THE son of paedophile Gert van Rooyen, who escaped from a Pretoria police station early on Thursday, has been recaptured. Gerhard van Rooyen, 31, was re-arrested at 6.30pm while walking along the Old Warmbaths Road near Zambezi Drive in Pretoria North. Early on Thursday morning he apparently asked to make a phone call, then slipped […]

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 […]

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 […]