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 […]
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 […]
Andy Capostagno Cricket And so it’s 4-0 and pretty soon now, highveld summer weather permitting, it will be 5-0. We have already run out of excuses for the poor performances of the West Indies and gone through adjectives with which to describe them. About the only thing we haven’t done is to take a serious […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Most state schools will not have textbooks when they open their gates next week, despite promises from the Department of Education and President Nelson Mandela that delivery would be on track this year. Five provinces approached by the Mail & Guardian said grades one, two and 12 will receive their books […]
One million rounds of bullets tipped with uranium were fired during the Gulf War. They slice through tanks. And this is what they do to humans. Maggie O’Kane reports on Iraq’s deformed children, victims of a war they never knew The movement inside her body is strange: different from her three other children. As Suad […]
Friday night: Alex Sudheim The water in the bath has turned cold, clammy and grey. I’m blissfully asleep when violent explosions rip through the silent night. In an instant I’m on my feet, skidding dangerously in the slimy tub and sending swampy waves slopping over the edge. Clinging to the towel rail, I peer out […]
Guy Preston Right of Reply In your end-of-year assessment of the performance of Cabinet ministers during 1998, you referred to Kader Asmal’s Working for Water programme as being “on track”. However, you add the programme “is criticised for providing short-term, not enduring, solutions”. This comment indicates a fairly common failure to understand the developmental nature […]
Encarta or Britannica?The encyclopaedia giants on CD-Rom go head-to-head. Roger Plant adjudicates Britannica seems a synonym for encyclopaedias, carrying that authority which a market leader can command long after it ceases to be earned. Until a few years ago, many conscientious families might still have considered investing in its 32 volumes. Yet by 1996, sales […]
A NIGERIAN newspaper says the bodies of 25 soldiers serving with the West African intervention force Ecomog that were killed in Sierra Leone were returned to Nigeria in secret and buried. The newspaper said the bodies were flown into the country on Monday night and buried at the army cemetery inside Ojo military barracks in […]
million Ferial Haffajee The high matric failure rate has cost the state more than R100-million, raising questions about the efficacy of the examination system. With all the results now in, the average matric pass rate is 55,1%. The financial losses incurred stand in sharp contrast to the desperate needs of poor schools. Almost seven in […]