This year will build on much that was done last year. David Shapshak examines innovations that will make news this year What will be the new killer app? This is the perennial question that computer makers, the telecommunications sector and their associated industries are always asking about new applications. This year will be no different, […]

The controversy does not end with the settlement reached between local sufferers of asbestos-related diseases and UK-based Cape Plc Barry Streek Local mining companies Anglo-American and Gencor as well as Swiss-controlled Eternit, which once owned profitable asbestos mines in South Africa, face swingeing legal claims after the multimillion-rand settlement in the Cape plc case. Nelspruit-based […]

Attempts to plaster over cracks in the ANC-led alliance faltered at the weekend as the president embarked on another diatribe against enemies, real and imagined, reports Jaspreet Kindra President Thabo Mbeki accused Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) leaders at the weekend of working with “international left-wing forces” to topple him, say well-placed informants. […]

Injury and surprise losses have thrown open the Australian Open Dan Rookwood The big players are dropping in Melbourne like winter wasps and though the year has only just begun, several key contenders have pulled out of the Australian Open with injuries. Andre Agassi and Serena Williams fell victim to respective wrist and ankle problems […]

CRICKET Peter Robinson I had to turn off talk radio this week during the middle of a “discussion” on South African cricket, so misinformed, so blithely unaware were the participants. The Kerry Packer Revolution, for instance, was passed off as a sort of one-day circus dreamed up by Packer, organised by Tony Greig and staffed […]

Peter Vale sees the war on terrorism as a continuation of Washington’s campaign to “fashion the world in its own interests” that began with the war against communism (“Crusade to settle scores”, January 11). He implies South Africa is being duped into doing the United States’s bidding. His fears are misplaced. President Thabo Mbeki and […]

I have always wondered why the president and ANC communication officers do not take up pens and cross swords with the traitor, Sipho Seepe. I think they are reluctant to do that because it will elevate the status of an African brother who is now a sell-out. Some of us are not enthusiastic to respond […]

I was misrepresented in “State’s cholera efforts ‘off the mark’” (January 11). I told your reporter that I was not in a position to comment on government strategy on cholera intervention in KwaZulu-Natal, but that the Mvula Trust’s approach was to put up “multiple barriers” against water-borne disease. These include: provision of safe water for […]

Q&A FREDABRAHAMSE Guy Willoughby Ebullient Cape Town director Fred Abrahamse unveils his 1960s “summer of love” version of the Bard’s romantic comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Maynardville this week. So why a 1960s setting? My recollections of the 1960s I was a child, by the way, not a teenager, as some people think was […]

Duncan Mackay in Melbourne A wisp of a young woman who looks as if one gust of wind would blow her away played in Melbourne not just for glory, but for the emancipation of her sisters all 140-million of them. Selima Sfar’s appearance in the Australian Open went beyond the sporting arena and became a […]