In October the Internet will host its first election, with registered voters deciding who will regulate this medium Lauren Shantall Only 200 South Africans will be voting for one of two African candidates for Icann, the Internet “traffic authority” – despite there being nearly two million local users. The Icann election, from October 1 to […]
James Wood Experience by Martin Amis (Jonathan Cape) Experience is a beautiful, and beautifully strange book, and it is unlike anything one expected. One feared a trough of plaint: either a sad, Gosse-like reckoning with the father; or an angry, journalistic reckoning with those journalists who have hunted Amis from tooth to tooth. But Experience […]
Vusi Mahlasela says his songs assume their own direction, but he has been a master of his own destiny all his life Nicky Blumenfeld If South Africa’s recent history were to be described in narrative form, then Vusi Mahlasela’s life story would provide fitting material. It is also appropriate that his latest album, Miyela Afrika, […]
Justice is blind – and she’s close to broke, as a cash-flow crisis cripples the courts Glenda Daniels and Khadija Magardie The Johannesburg High Court has run out of money to pay for fax paper and has enough cash for just one month’s worth of judges’ telephone bills, it emerged this week. Lawyers told the […]
Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION Recently BBC World ran a documentary that I sincerely wish someone would shove down the throats of Mr Ronnie Kasrils, Mr Jeremy Cronin and any other latter-day commies they can find. Called Mission to Moldova, the documentary told the story of a voluntary United Kingdom charity aid convoy bringing three large pantechnicons […]
Andrew Muchineripi soccer Think carefully about the question I am about to pose before you answer it: what are the most common words on the lips of football fans ahead of any cup final? A clue. It is so obvious that it may not be obvious. Without fear of contradiction I declare that “Who will […]
Daniel Taylor soccer The first bouquets started arriving just before 11am. It started as a slow trickle, followed by a steady flow. Very soon, as the news reverberated across the old cotton town, Ewood Park had become the focal point for the mourning of a club and its community. Not only Blackburn but English football […]
Jaspreet Kindra Liberia’s ambassador to South Africa this week conceded that the arrest of the four journalists in Monrovia on charges of spying was the latest in the series of blows to the country’s credibility. Ambassador Llewellyn Witherspoon said the arrests “did not help the country’s image”. The four journalists, including South African cameraman Gugu […]
Philip Machanick For almost as long as anyone can remember Apple has been promising to deliver a great new operating system. An operating system is the software that controls basic functions of a computer: allowing multiple programs to run without bumping into each other, organising information on a disk into documents and applications … in […]
Ebrahim Harvey left field The black left-leaning Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) and the Pan Africanist Congress over the past few months have taken the first serious steps towards unity. This is part of the broader flux and ferment in South African politics, as seen by the merger of the New National Party and the Democratic […]