Sarah Boseley and Tim Radford Cancer is one of the world’s biggest killers. It is a stealthy predator, corrupting the cells of a healthy body, doing damage and hastening death without displaying, for a long while, any outward sign. The treatment is unpleasant and the outcome uncertain. Nobody can be sure they will not fall […]
The South African pharmaceutical industry has been greatly expounded in the media in the past few months. The reason is not, however, as a result of the sector’s amazing rise in share prices, but as a consequence of frequent government intervention. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange pharmaceutical index has risen from a December 1997 low of […]
Wally Mbhele Mounting frustration over the continued incarceration of Robert McBride, who has been languishing in a Mozambican jail without trial for almost two-and-a-half months, has prompted calls for the South African government to become more active in securing the freedom of its foreign affairs official. After the Mozambican authorities failed this week either to […]
Hitler had two dreams. One, to take over the world. Two, to create the ‘people’s car’. Thankfully, the first failed, but the second lived on to escape its Nazi enslavement. Jonathan Glancey looks back on the social history of the Volkswagen Beetle When in January 1945 Adolf Hitler returned to Berlin from the Wolf’s Lair […]
Marion Edmunds gets to grips with how people felt 50 years ago when the National Party came to power The National Party today is a shadow of its former self, publicly regretting the policy of apartheid which brought it to power in the highly charged national elections of May 26 1948. Fifty years ago it […]
Fools, the film based on the short stories of Njabulo Ndebele and directed by Ramadan Suleman, opens on circuit this week, Andrew Worsdale spoke to the director Ramadan Suleman is a passionate guy. He uses his intense, piercing eyes when he talks and gesticulates powerfully. No wonder. He spent about 10 years in Paris and […]
Swapna Prabhakaran The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health announced an “inadequate” health budget for 1998/99 this week, sparking an outcry from hospital staff who predict it will have dire consequences for health services. Drastic cutbacks in services and staff have already been implemented at some provincial hospitals in preparation for the budget, which is R621-million short […]
David Newnham Runny nose, annoying cough and a sore throat that won’t go away? Time was when your doctor would recommend a good holiday. But today, the question “When were you last on an aeroplane?” is more likely to pinpoint the source of an infection than suggest a cure. The practice of recirculating cabin air […]
Stewart Dalby They are not the most expensive items in their field, nor are they the best crafted, but Rolexes are the most famous watches. Virtually every month one of the four big auction houses, Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Phillips or Bonham’s, holds a watch sale and there are specialised dealers. But Rolex will have an auction […]
Duncan Mackay Hassiba Boulmerka When Hassiba Boulmerka arrived home in Algiers after her 1E500m victory at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, she expected a heroine’s welcome. Instead she was booed and jeered by Islamic Fundamentalists who objected to her running in shorts and vest. “For Muslim women I symbolise freedom but, believe me, many people […]