Neil Thomas TAKING STOCK Everybody in the investment industry knows it happens. It’s share price manipulation, an activity that skirts the border of legality depending on its scale and intention. But there’s little that can be done about it – many professional investors would rather nothing was done about it, regarding stock manipulation as just […]
Amazon’s 1-Click system may be neat, but making it exclusive is absurd John Naughton Like many people in my line of business, I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon. It’s by far the slickest, most efficient e-commerce operation on the Web. Unlike many of its competitors, it has cracked the “fulfilment” problem – the […]
science David Le Page Aids has attacked the intellectual resources of sections of the body politic as successfully as it has assaulted the immune systems of many South Africans. The heart of the problem appears to be a profound misunderstanding on the part of the president, successive health ministers and their immediate advisers of the […]
Gavin Evans BOXING It was on a Sunday night, during a dinner party, that Brendan Ingle finally managed to reach me on my cellphone. He’d been leaving messages for me all over London, asking me to contact him as a matter of urgency. Ingle – the Irishman who created “Prince” Naseem Hamed, serving as a […]
How 007 could send an unbreakable coded message to Moonraker Michael Brooks In New Mexico the light can be truly astonishing. Not because it gives the desert a strange aesthetic beauty, but because it contains coded messages. Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory announced recently that they have written data into single photons, the […]
Barry Streek The accrued backlog for the upgrading, maintenance and repair of South Africa’s national roads, excluding provincial and district roads, was estimated at R3- billion at the start of the 1999/2000 financial year, Minister of Transport Dullah Omar has revealed. However, only R775-million was allocated in the 1999/2000 financial year by the Department of […]
Thebe Mabanga The stature of South African musicians is set to be drastically improved. This is if the recommendations of the Music Industry Task Team (Mitt) are successfully implemented. The recommendations are contained in a draft report that has been prepared after a week-long seating for Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology Ben Ngubane. […]
Peter Dickson Still weary from flood relief and mercy missions in Mozambique, South African Air Force (SAAF) helicopter pilots were this week plucking stranded victims from raging river waters in southern KwaZulu- Natal and northern Transkei. Pilots of the SAAF’s Durban-based 15 Squadron rescued 13 pupils and teachers from Riverside Primary in Port Saint John’s […]
Alan Henry MOTOR RACING When the Formula One (F1) paddock reconvenes in Melbourne this week, the main topic of conversation will for once not surround the future of a particular driver or team. Rather it is the very future of the sport which is of paramount concern after the recent revelation that its commercial controller […]
The opportunity to institute a constructive policy to deal with the HIV/Aids epidemic is slipping out of reach as politicians and scientists argue over who knows best Mail & Guardian reporters Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang confirmed last week that her department is busy setting up a panel of approximately 30 local and international experts […]