Jim McClellan meets a man who wants to sweep away the concept of the home computer Here’s a question to ponder: how many electric motors do you have in your house? Probably more than you realise. But you don’t think of them as electric motors. Instead, you just get on with using your food mixer […]

CDs of the week: Phillip Kakaza Although this country still boasts a lively jazz tradition, so much of the best of it was shipped away to flourish abroad. The Blue Notes, founded by innovative pianist Chris McGregor, went to exile in 1965. Apartheid prohibited them from performing as a racially mixed band in South Africa. […]

Robert Kirby A FIELD GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS OF KWAZULU-NATAL AND THE EASTERN REGION by Elsa Pooley (Natal Flora Publications Trust) Let me begin by declaring a thoroughly personal interest. I have known Elsa Pooley for many years. She and her family have been close friends of mine since we first met in 1960s. Her […]

The TRC has found that torture and executions occurred in ANC camps in exile. Some of those targeted were killed as a result of bad leadership, jealousies and paranoia, writes Charlene Smith Chris Hani was once sentenced to death by Umkhonto weSizwe’s (MK) high command in Tanzania for putting forward the grievances of MK cadres. […]

For a long time all Bloemfontein could offer was lots of vleis, rugby and the sound of veldskoene on its pristine pavements . Being black was no fun in this town in the province where you weren’t allowed to take a leak. But Mangaung, as it was called before the right-wing trekked in, is losing […]

Ferial Haffajee South African radio listeners, whether they tune into Zulu, Tsonga, English or any of the other eight South African language news services, have grown used to the staid bulletins of the ”Here is the news at one o’clock” variety. Yfm, Gauteng’s one-year-old commercial radio station, has broken out of the straightjacket culled from […]

Anthony Egan A LIFE AT LAW: THE MEMOIRS OF IA MAISELS QC by Isie Maisels (Jonathan Ball) Israel Aaron Maisels, Isie to his friends, was one of the greatest defence advocates in the legal history of South Africa. Born in Johannesburg, he attended a government school, Marist Brothers’ School (forerunner to the present Sacred Heart), […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 11.00am. DINGAAN THOBELA blew his much-hyped big comeback at Nasrec on Wednesday night, fighting to a draw with Argentina’s Carlos Baldomir. The scores were 115-113 to Baldomir, 116-112 to Thobela and 114-114. It was not a sparkling performance for the South African, who simply did not show the dynamism required […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT and AFP, Johannesburg | Thursday 9.30pm. THE United Nations Security Council voted on Thursday extended sanctions against Libya for a further four months to press Tripoli to surrender two Lockerbie bombing suspects. UN Security Council president Sir Jeremy Greenstock noted that the 15 members were formally offering to suspend the sanctions as soon […]

MIKE METELITS, Johannesburg | Thursday 3.00pm. A NEW twist in the Reserve Bank’s repo system of lending short-term money to banks emerged Wednesday, as the Bank overestimated market liquidity demands by about R300-million, offering R7,1-billion while tendering banks only took up R6,8-billion. This shortfall indicates that liquidity conditions in the market are easing, making banks […]