Developing countries must use their resources to stimulate growth worm’s eye view Steven Friedman We must take care lest growth plans become Africa’s chief growth industry. President Thabo Mbeki is investing much in the Millennium Africa Recovery Plan (MAP) he authored with Nigerian President Olusegun Obesanjo and Algeria’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and which has been […]

Roshila Pillay and David Macfarlane If you’re not online, you’re heading for oblivion. For public and private education institutions, whether traditionally contact or distance, this is the clear message. A sampling of recent innovations shows that the formerly distinct categories of contact and distance learning are increasingly merging. And it’s a buyer’s that is, learner’s […]

LONDON CALLING Martin Spring The currency to back now could be the euro. Does that come as a surprise? For the long haul the dollar is a better bet as it reflects the superiority of the United States economy, offering higher risk-adjusted returns and greater breadth of opportunities. The US is better managed than Europe […]

Akin Ojumu The Grateful Dead singer Jerry Garcia has been the subject of numerous tributes after his death, but perhaps the most flattering came last year when he inspired the character of God in the short-lived animated series God, the Devil and Bob. Given tongue by a languid James Garner, God, who seemingly hails from […]

After a decade of market imitation, is it possible to be a radical intellectual? Lynne Segal comments Have you had yours yet? One astonished academic after another has sent me copies of letters asking them to consider a little school teaching on the side. It is unclear if the private company soliciting us imagines, correctly, […]

Belinda Anderson profiles Sizwe Nxasana, the gentle, well-considered boss of this soon-to-be public telecoms utility In his pinstriped suit and with his collected manner, Sizwe Nxasana could be mistaken for an ace merchant banker who has just closed a big deal. Rather, he is the head of Telkom, the parastatal that is preparing for South […]

Clinics in Soweto are failing to help youths seeking sexual advice and treatment. Suzan Chala reports The rights to confidentiality and privacy, informed consent and access to health care are in South Africa’s “patients’ rights charter”. But at Pimville clinic in Soweto, these seem to be privileges rather than rights. Teenagers seeking advice and treatment […]

Technikon research may still be in its infancy, but it is taking itself seriously and growing fast, says Cheryl Lombard, manager of the Technikon Programme of the National Research Foundation (NRF). Before Parliament allowed technikons to award degrees in 1993, nobody encouraged or expected them to engage in research. The NRF’s financial support of technikon […]

Plans to develop a perlemoen farm in a biosphere reserve have been met with objections Barry Streek A decision by the national and Western Cape governments to allow a perlemoen (abalone) farm in the pristine Pringle Bay area, located in the buffer zone of the country’s only United Nation-recognised biosphere, has triggered strong criticism from […]

Alun Munslow Over the years the practice of history has witnessed a good many shifts and turns. Since the 1960s, for example, the discipline has experienced a social science turn, a cliometric or statistics turn, a women’s history turn, a cultural history turn and so on. These are not fads. Each has developed and still […]