Douglas Rushkoff online So, am I, like the last kid on the block to get my Hotline server up and running? It sure seems so. Not since I logged on to the Internet for the first time, back in 1988, and encountered the already-populated chat rooms, bulletin boards, and hacker groups, have I been so […]

Wonder Hlongwa A Jewish extremist group has threatened to “take action” against a Johannesburg Muslim family because of what a 14-year-old wrote in a history assignment. Last week, the Jewish Defence League (JDL) wrote a letter to Hassan Cassim, father of Layla, a grade eight pupil at Crawford College, demanding that she retract the contents […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Windhoek | Thursday 8.00pm. A BILL that will allow Namibian President Sam Nujoma to stand for a third term was approved by the second house of parliament on Thursday, and now only needs Nujoma’s own signature to become law. The controversial Namibian Constitution First Amendment Bill, passed in the National Council by 19 […]

She writes textbooks for a living and composes poems about Sea Point. Karen Press speaks to Jane Rosenthal Poet Karen Press, who currently writes science and maths textbooks for a living, has lived in Sea Point for much of her life. Characteristically, she has had some dialogue with herself on what most folk would just […]

site David Larsen Ndumo game reserve, on the border with Mozambique in northern KwaZulu-Natal, is the centre of a land-claim dispute that could set a precedent for numerous community land claims in game parks throughout the country. The KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Traditional and Environmental Affairs, Nyanga Ngubane, has agreed to temporarily allocate 10ha of land […]

The Human Rights Commission’s (HRC) announcement that it would not proceed with its investigation into complaints of alleged racism at the Mail & Guardian and the Sunday Times – but was instead expanding the inquiry into racism in the media as a whole – was made as we were going to the printers last week. […]

Shaun de Waal : First Person In last week’s First Person, the noted British feminist Joan Smith told us why women don’t cruise. But her answer seemed to have two parts: one explicit, one implicit. Danger, she said, is the main reason women don’t haunt parks and public toilets in search of sex. Underlying that, […]

They belong to women, but everywhere they are annexed – as a symbol of strength, as a symbol of weakness, by the artist, by the pornographer, by the advertiser, for sex, for nourishment. What is the significance of breasts? Libby Brooks reclaims the personal and the tactile from the political and the commercial At the […]

Ferial Haffajee The Independent Newspaper group’s golden boy, Shaun Johnson, has stepped down from his executive position to become a specialist writer for its 14 newspaper titles. Johnson’s move has come at the same time as unprecedented trouble at the Irish-owned media group, but he swears that the timing is coincidental. “There are some people […]

Toby Walne Spending it Barbie is facing middle age. Next year she will celebrate her 40th birthday. Early Barbie fans who resisted the temptation to pull off her arms or legs can count themselves lucky: vintage first-edition Barbies sell for about R60 000. Action Man is hot on Barbie’s heels. Rejuvenated with extra muscles and […]