Chiara Carter Moves by a South African company to create a free trade zone on a tiny island off the West Coast of Africa have been slammed by environmentalists. West African Development Corporation (Wadco) has won a contract to operate a free trade zone stretching across a third of the island of Principe – a […]
THE National Party has lost its appeal against a decision by the press ombudsman that the Mail & Guardian was justified in publishing details of a police investigation into its leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk. The article, NP leader in bizarre sex probe reported that a Western Cape criminal, John Hermanus, had laid charges of sodomy […]
The euro is here, but how will it affect you? Belinda Beresford reports Like Spock and Captain Kirk caught in a malfunctioning transporter beam, the euro is not yet fully in this world. It is still elusive, existing only in cyberspace, on price tags and travellers cheques. The real notes and coins won’t be jingling […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Most state schools will not have textbooks when they open their gates next week, despite promises from the Department of Education and President Nelson Mandela that delivery would be on track this year. Five provinces approached by the Mail & Guardian said grades one, two and 12 will receive their books […]
Point for point, the two measure up, but the raw statistics are deceptive. What should be clear is that we are not really comparing like with like. Britannica is a text-based leviathan, a mass of information, some of it rather long in the tooth, sometimes too detailed, but often impressive in its scope, though making […]
Andrew Worsdale The Siege was the number-one box office hit in South Africa this week and has grossed R1 979 136. But many Muslim organisations would like the movie banned. Director Edward Zwick’s thriller has been causing controversy around the world. The film revolves around an FBI agent attempting to root out an Arab-American “terrorist” […]
Encarta or Britannica?The encyclopaedia giants on CD-Rom go head-to-head. Roger Plant adjudicates Britannica seems a synonym for encyclopaedias, carrying that authority which a market leader can command long after it ceases to be earned. Until a few years ago, many conscientious families might still have considered investing in its 32 volumes. Yet by 1996, sales […]
Loose cannon: Robert Kirby A trusty old verbal objet d’art has been given a new lease of life. Thanks to the Black Lawyers’ Association the word “subliminal” is back in fashion. The last time the word enjoyed such attention was back in the 1950s when something called “subliminal advertising” was exposed for the cheating scam […]
Guy Preston Right of Reply In your end-of-year assessment of the performance of Cabinet ministers during 1998, you referred to Kader Asmal’s Working for Water programme as being “on track”. However, you add the programme “is criticised for providing short-term, not enduring, solutions”. This comment indicates a fairly common failure to understand the developmental nature […]
poison CD of the week: Shaun de Waal One of the strangest and most interesting CDs of South African origin you are likely to hear this year -or any other – is dURBAN NOISE and scraps WORKS. On it, University of Natal composer Jurgen Bruninger, draws together 47 Durban players and any number of found […]