James Meek One hot day in September 1893, at the sound of the starting guns, the rich prairie soil of the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma was darkened by a flowing wave of humanity, horses and wagons. The United States government was giving away 33000km2 of Indian territory to any settler able to race fast enough […]

Statistics show an increase in job creation over the past four years, but the real story is not so rosy Jeremy Baskin Perhaps, like me, you thought the economy was shedding jobs. Well, think again and take a close look at the figures in the table below. According to Statistics SA (in statistical release P0317) […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi Ever wondered how much your better half spends on the phone? Or why you are only told and not shown the bill at the end of each month? Easy. Try the telecommunications company’s newest innovation, Telkom online. By dialing 10210 and following a few easy instructions, you can access even your biggest foe’s […]

The founding father of African writing in English, he challenged the perspective of colonialist white writers and fell foul of successive regimes in Nigeria. Just turned 70 and living in the US, he returns to his troubled homeland in a new volume of essays. Maya Jaggi reports While Nelson Mandela was serving 27 years in […]

If you were in flood-ravaged KwaZulu-Natal or Mozambique this week, you would have seen the effects of global warning first hand. Sea-level rise and more frequent extreme weather are no longer theory but reality. Most climate scientists now agree that human activity is the main cause of global warming. Millions of people across the world […]

Ebrahim Harvey Left Field The recent commemoration of the death of Steve Biko, founding father of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), put the spotlight on the movement and came at a time when, represented by the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) and the Socialist Party of Azania (Sopa), it is faced with very difficult times. Both […]

Andrew Worsdale Sithengi, the fifth Southern African Film and Television Market, was held at the Spier Wine Estate near Stellenbosch, 45 minutes from Cape Town, from November 13 to 16. Although the organisers boasted an increase in attendance with 1?420 delegates, in comparison to previous years, the atmosphere felt less charged and more cautious. Added […]

Elisabeth Lickindorf South Africa pushed the frontiers of science this week, with the launch of new satellite measuring technology that can provide accurate measurements of the physical changes of sub-Saharan Africa for the first time. It will allow South African scientists to monitor the potentially devastating El Nio effect, where ocean warming can raise sea […]

John Aizlewood CD OFTHEWEEK Whatever darkness Sade Adu has embraced since 1992’s distracted Love Deluxe, she has certainly undergone a musical re-evaluation. Much derided, more often than not correctly, as brazenly coffee-table, Sade (the never-changing band as well as its singer) have tapped into a new seam of inspiration on the newly released Lovers Rock […]

Howard Barrell A company employing the brothers of Western Cape African National Congress leader Ebrahim Rasool produced a controversial poster distributed in Muslim areas of the Cape Flats two weeks ago carrying the slogan “A vote for the DA [Democratic Alliance] is a vote for Israel”, according to sources in the printing industry in Cape […]