Life with the creature feature – Jack Schofield charts the rise of the robots The creation of artificial life will be one of the themes of the 21st century; it’s already helping to drive the toys and games market, from CyberLife’s Creatures to Sony’s AIBO robot dog. A generation of children is keeping “virtual pets” […]

stifling public voice Peter Dickson African National Congress legislators in the Eastern Cape have been crossing swords with one another over public hearings on the province’s embattled social welfare system. The hearings are due to take place on Monday, but the 46 venues where the hearings will take place will only be announced on Friday. […]

Belinda Beresford What Is … Rhema Church? The Rhema Church, headed by Pastor Ray McCauley, is becoming one of South Africa’s most fashionable institutions. This week the church received another seal of acceptance from South Africa’s black elite when it was chosen to host the funeral of African National Congress stalwart Alfred Nzo. Last week […]

Paul Kirk and Jubie Matlou Police and intelligence services in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape are warning of widespread violence in the provinces amid mounting discontent about proposed changes to municipal demarcations. Six people have already died and more than 30 have been seriously injured in fighting that has been directly attributed to the newly […]

The Kruger Park and a local community are locking horns over an extraordinary deal that allows commercial hunting in the country’s top game reserve. Fiona Macleod reports Barely a year after the Makuleke community regained ownership of 24E000ha in the Kruger National Park, it has signed an agreement with a Northern Province hunting outfit to […]

Heather Hogan The number of HIV/Aids-related deaths outstripped the number of births in KwaZulu-Natal last year, according to a report released by the South African Institute of Race Relations. In the report, Professor Alan Smith, head of the virology department at the University of Natal, warns that the rest of South Africa will eventually follow […]

Saturday: In the hot, dry and windy conditions various veld fires spring up in the greater Cape metropolitan area. Sunday: The fire starts in the mountain ranges around Hout Bay in the Silvermine area of the Cape Peninsula National Park. A historic house at East Fort above Chapman’s Peak Drive is destroyed. Staff from the […]

motive Chris McGreal The long-suffering people of the Democratic Republic of Congo have little inclination to dwell on how the bombs that kill their families and destroy their homes are delivered. The hundreds who died last year in Makanza, Goma or Kisangani might have fallen victim to aircraft from an array of countries. After all, […]

An historian has urged a commission to quiz those involved in Patrice Lumumba’s murder. Ian Black reports from Brussels Evidence of direct Belgian government complicity in the execution of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba must be made public and those implicated questioned, a historian demanded last week. Lugo de Witte, a Flemish expert on Africa, called […]

Ebrahim Harvey Crossfire Seen against the background of preceding developments, the reaction to recent statements by Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel has exaggerated the significance of what he said. Most of Manuel’s policy pronouncements and the impending “big bang” in economic reforms reported last week were said many times last year: the need to accelerate […]