Last week Robert Kirby presented the Mail & Guardian readership with an attack on Tony Leon’s integrity that was at once gruesome and florid, and altogether rather spectacular. But when one sets aside his searing metaphor, passion for hyperbole, surprising and often impressive tangles of description, it becomes clear that Kirby was really just talking […]
Cell on steroids gets even better David Shapshak While the tech world has been clamouring to produce the ultimate convergent device blending a cellphone and personal digital assistant (PDA), Nokia has been doing it for years. The 9000 series phones have distinctively featured a flip-open screen and miniature keyboard, and have gone from strength to […]
David Shapshak It took 20 years for the computer processor to break the one-gigahertz barrier, but only a year to double that speed. This week Intel, the world’s largest manufacturer of the silicon-based processor that powers a major chunk of the planet’s computers, announced its latest chip: the Pentium 4 running at two gigahertz. But […]
The benefits of negotiation worm’s eye view Steven Friedman There is an “obvious” explanation of the stand on privatisation taken by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). It is agreed by the president and leader of the opposition, commentators, stockbrokers and business people. First, it is said or implied that Cosatu has no […]
Nawaal Deane Women and children are dying of poverty in the former Transkei. The children are dying of malnutrition related diseases and the women are victims of violence exacerbated by poverty. The former homeland of Transkei, one of the poorest regions in South Africa, has the highest mortality rate for women and children in the […]
John Naughton In principle, computing ought to be amenable to rationality. After all, programs are just encoded logic. Why then do arguments between computer folk about the relative merits of operating systems have the surface characteristics of religious wars? Umberto Eco once wrote an essay in which he argued that the IBM PC was a […]
It’s back to the drawing board for labour, business and the government to come up with a strategy for economic growth Glenda Daniels The most significant political strike in the post-apartheid period is over but the government, labour and business appear no closer to a strategy that can repair broken relationships between them. Unions say […]
week, saying he fears the probe into the arms deal is ineffectual Mungo Soggot Andrew Feinstein, the outspoken African National Congress (ANC) MP who resigned from Parliament this week, says he fears that Parliament is becoming sidelined and that elements within the ANC are becoming increasingly intolerant of independent minds. Feinstein says he also fears […]
Dignitaries in the Boland town gathered to celebrate their first cricket ‘Springbok’ John Young The number of buttons on a jacket can sometimes tell you where a man is from. When 150 burghers of Worcester gathered last week to celebrate Claude Henderson’s selection to the national side, it was clear the guest speaker in the […]
I would like to question whether Dennis Brutus has the necessary credentials to address the United Nations World Conference Against Racism. His past suggests he is not without racial bias. In the Seventies Brutus was a prime instigator in an unsuccessful attempt to have my grandfather, a veteran foe of apartheid and coauthor of the […]