Has Microsoft reached its “sell by” date? Has the meteoric rise and rise of the company reached a peak, with the prospect of a slippery downward slide making Microsoft go beyond aggressive competition – into monopolistic, unfairly competitive and arrogan t business practices? Some early warning signals are appearing. But, let me lay my cards […]
The Time of the Writer festival was recently held at Natal University. South African author Farida Karodia was there Monday In the afternoon Nigeria’s Nobel winner Wole Soyinka, British author Barbara Trapido, Zimbabwean Yvonne Vera and Breyten Breytenbach, there since Sunday, drift into the lounge. Some of the writers on the programme have not turned […]
Hunadi Mateme: RIGHT TO REPLY Your article, “MEC ‘has blood on her hands’” (February 27 to March 5) has not done anything to assist the public in understanding the action of my department. Your reporter claims that this mentally ill person set fire to himself and his home because his pension was suspended. We could […]
Please allow me to add some comments and correct some historical errors regarding John Grobler’s article (“Still no redress for Herero”, March 13 to 19). As Grobler correctly points out, the Herero-German war resulted in genocide – the first genocide to take place in our genocidal century, before the mass killings of Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, […]
with the times People who got themselves classified coloured in the old days are switching back – to black, writes Angella Johnson Once upon a time in the old South Africa it was considered infinitely preferable to be coloured rather than black. At least that was what Frank Makoba’s family thought when they opted to […]
Joseph Heller thinks Catch-22 makes him America’s greatest novelist. What more can a man achieve? Well, he could try and be a bit nicer, writes Lynn Barber Everyone told me beforehand that I would love Joseph Heller, and, of course, I already loved his writing. I belong to the generation that wore “Yossarian Lives!” badges […]
Deborah Toler: A SECOND LOOK When Theodore Roosevelt visited sub-Saharan Africa in 1909, after he had already stepped down as United States president, he took an elephant gun and a team of taxidermists and brought home 512 animal specimens for the Smithsonian Institute. When President Bill Clinton – the first USpresident to visit this region […]
Ferial Haffajee SABC chief executive Zwelakhe Sisulu made a rapid about-turn at the weekend when he accepted a top-notch job at New Africa Investments Limited (Nail) instead of a very senior post at Independent Newspapers. It appears that Sisulu finally made up his mind about a new job at the weekend and made rushed attempts […]
Emeka Nwandiko With a sharp intake of breath, followed by an oath, Aubrey flicks his left wrist and casts to the concrete floor a pair of dice. A three and four is scored, notching up his winnings to R50. He is all smiles: considering that when he began the game of ama dice he had […]
Mzilikazi wa Afrika The Department of Justice has enlisted two of South Africa’s top special investigation teams to probe a well-organised national crime syndicate which has defrauded the department of more than R30-million over the past three years. Confidential information leaked to the Mail & Guardian shows that 23 government officials, including police officers, court […]