In 1997 more than three people died every day in work-related accidents. Researchers at Cape Town’s Alternative Information and Development Centre ask why the figures are so high Business is delighted to bask in the publicity given to its campaigns against crime. However, it plays another role in law and order that receives (virtually) no […]

Rupert Neethling and eM&G reporters The time has come, the walrus said, to think of many things; of POPs and mailbox aliases, and the hassles a computer brings (with apologies to Lewis Carroll). There has been a dramatic surge of interest in the Internet in South Africa over the past few years. It is becoming […]

Ground control of computers is child’s play when it comes to the capabilities of satellite constellations, reports Bill O’Neill Microsoft dominates the world of personal computers and, whatever the result of current action by the United States Justice Department, looks set to determine the future of the Internet, too. For Bill Gates, the company’s boss, […]

Douglas Rushkoff: ONLINE I signed on to a cause a few weeks ago: a crusade for rational thinking about technology and its role in human affairs. Oddly and amazingly, just that statement alone has proven controversial. For those who see me as a pro- technology Utopian, or who are devoutly pro-technology themselves, it sounds like […]

Recent changes announced by the McCarthy Group, including the creation of McCarthy Bank, came as no surprise to industrial analysts and other market pundits. The company has been languishing in no-man’s land for 18 months and analysts have expressed concern about a lack of clear direction at the top of the company. Directors had punted […]

Ann Eveleth The apartheid-era homeland system and rural “betterment schemes” were the worst causes of land degradation, according to a rapid appraisal of land resources conducted in the run-up to World Desertification Day on Wednesday. The study forms part of South Africa’s National Action Programme to implement the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. The […]

Africa David Shapshak A new generation of low-orbit communications satellites could be the boost African telecommunications is looking for. While South Africa’s fledgling techno- enthusiastic population has embraced cellular telephony, it has not established much else on the continent. However, satellite companies are expecting Africa to hop directly to satellite use. Communication by satellite has […]

Community theatre is alive and well, and generating debate. Phillip Kakaza looks at two recent examples `South African theatre is floating on the waves of political change,” observes Johnny Loate, whose play, Cabbages and Bullets, 1998 winner of the Windybrow Arts Festival FNB Vita Award, is now at the Windybrow. “Protest theatre was based on […]

Coenraad Visser Classical music Unlike its auspicious opening season, the second season of the newly independent National Symphony Orchestra is a rather uneven affair. Russian conductor Vladimir Simkine showed all the good qualities one has come to expect of him – a thorough knowledge of the scores and strict control of the orchestra. In the […]

A special correspondent in Abuja There were few tears and fewer obsequies for General Sani Abacha, the late and brutal president of Nigeria. Wrapped in a sheet and carried to his home town of Kano in the cargo hold of a Nigerian air force jet, he arrived too late even to be buried before evening […]