Point for point, the two measure up, but the raw statistics are deceptive. What should be clear is that we are not really comparing like with like. Britannica is a text-based leviathan, a mass of information, some of it rather long in the tooth, sometimes too detailed, but often impressive in its scope, though making […]
IN a case of coals to Newcastle, buyers from Saudi Arabia are interested in acquiring 141 camels to be auctioned off by the Botswana police next month. Camels have been used for patrolling the Kalahari desert since last century. The Botswana police is cutting back its camel inventory from 171 ships of the desert to […]
Andrew Worsdale Movie of the week American independent films have that intelligent edge that has been missing from Hollywood productions since the late 1970s. Not even Francis Ford Coppola has made a really decent movie since Apocalypse Now, and that was in 1979. Vincent Gallo’s Buffalo 66, which opens at cinemas this week, is a […]
against Aids David Gough in Dar es Salaam Mashaka is the best-known truck driver in Tanzania, and his exploits are famous. He spends most of his time on the roads of East Africa, rarely sees his wife and has a girlfriend in every town. Mashaka became ill a few weeks ago and Tanzanians are holding […]
Adam Mars-Jones HEAVY WATER AND OTHER STORIES by Martin Amis (Jonathan Cape) Without the story State of England, this would be a dismaying volume to come from the champion British fiction writer of his generation. Unlike his tightly themed previous collection, Einstein’s Monsters, this one brings together early work (two stories from the Seventies, one […]
Ferial Haffajee The exhibition is not linear in any way, but is instead divided into 12 positions. The major positions include: Fortification: From the first one built at the Cape in 1652, architecture in South Africa has been characterised by a series of forts. Later, forts in the Eastern Cape were constructed to stake the […]
The euro is here, but how will it affect you? Belinda Beresford reports Like Spock and Captain Kirk caught in a malfunctioning transporter beam, the euro is not yet fully in this world. It is still elusive, existing only in cyberspace, on price tags and travellers cheques. The real notes and coins won’t be jingling […]
Chiara Carter and Marianne Merten In the mythology of the Cape Flats’s Americans gang, the six white and seven red lines on the stars and stripes flag represent crisp banknotes stained in blood. Criminologist Don Pinnock says this representation, integrated into the gang’s initiation ritual, illustrates key elements of Cape gangsterism – money, violence and […]
EGYPTIAN women will soon be able to buy a divorce even if their husband objects, under a draft law outlined by the government Al-Ahram newspaper on Thursday. Justice Minister Faruq Seif an-Nasr said that a new law on personal status is being drawn up to simplify legal procedures and it will go before Parliament shortly. […]
A BRANCH of American franchise Kentucky Fried Chicken in Athlone on the Cape Flats was petrol bombed in the early hours of Friday. Western Cape police said a number of petrol bombs were thrown through the windows of the take-away in Klipfontein road at about 2am, causing damage estimated at R50000. The attack followed an […]