A tense lull settled over the world this week as the United States deliberated its response to the terror attacks on New York and Washington. Military retaliation seemed inevitable the only questions were how, when and where. The US reaction could critically shape the lives of everyone on the planet. As influential voices have warned, […]

Colloquium Wella Msimanga More than 30% of adults have never studied mathematics at school, 50% have never studied biological sciences and 55% have never studied physical and chemical science. This emerges from an article in a recent issue of the South African Journal of Science. The level of public understanding of science in South Africa […]

The neighbourhood is no longer national, but global, writes David Beresford It was, in one sense, the cellphones which gave a unique flavour to the tragedy, more heartbreaking than the details of scale. The wife poignantly asking her husband, in government service on the ground, what to tell the pilot to do. The hefty young […]

Glenda Daniels Unionists voiced frustration, and warned of heightened tensions in the tripartite alliance, after it emerged this week that the 18-a-side tripartite alliance summit has been delayed yet again. The meeting, designed to address the rift over privatisation and macroeconomic policy between the ruling African National Congress on the one hand, and the Congress […]

A common purpose has brought the three main union federations to talks of a merger Glenda Daniels Mounting opposition to privatisation has drawn the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the National Council of Trade Unions closer together, and unity will be on the agenda in talks between two largest labour federations this week. […]

ABOUT 208 000 Malawians still suffering the after effects of devastating floods and drought earlier this year will soon receive about 1 000 tons of food from the World Food Programme . The food – which included maize, beans and salt – had been fortified with micronutrients and would benefit communities from seven districts in […]

AN Mpumalanga man found his brother-in-law’s decapitated body on a riverbank on Wednesday, just two months after he disappeared, police reported on Thursday. Michael Mgwenya of Blinkwater Farm, near White River, was fishing when he saw a large object wrapped in green cloth on the edge of the river. “He unwrapped the cloth and found […]

JULIAN BORGER, EWEN MACASKILL, Washington | Friday AS far as President George W Bush is concerned, Osama bin Laden is “wanted dead or alive” for the September 11 outrages. The phrase harked back to a bygone Texan age when a lawman’s strong hunch would have been enough to dispatch a posse on the fugitive’s trail, […]

Cape Town | Friday POLICE fired stun grenades on Thursday at some 350 squatters south of Cape Town, after they tried to invade municipal land, a policeman said. Captain Jacques Wiese said residents of the Mandela Park squatter camp in Hout Bay, some “armed with spades and pangas” tore down a municipal fence and moved […]

BRENDAN BOYLE, Cape Town | Friday A COALITION of church, labour and civic groups challenged President Thabo Mbeki and his government on Thursday to acknowledge the scale of the HIV/Aids epidemic ravaging South Africa. “No one in our country can afford to deny the terrible extent of this epidemic,” the group said in a statement […]