Kader Asmal and Mike Muller The content and the cloak-and-dagger presentation of the article “Damn dams, look in your own backyard” (Monitor, April 30 to May 7), alleging powerful opposition to the Lesotho Highlands Project by unnamed Alexandra individuals, need to be tested and placed in context. Much of what is said in the name […]

Efforts to ensure fair play in sports have not proved an outstanding success, says John Duncan It is one of the biggest contests in world sport: the prize for winning, and the cost of taking part, are measured in millions of dollars. But it takes place not on a track or in a swimming pool […]

Nina Allchurch Telecentres, or common-use public access terminals, are the innovative means government has come up with to get the information society to the vast majority of people who live in remote rural parts of South Africa. These kiosks are part of a pilot project initiated by Minister of Post, Telecommunications and Broadcasting Jay Naidoo […]

Mike Jensen With the increasing recognition of the importance of the Internet in accelerating development, a number of recent initiatives have improved the prospects for wider access to information and communication networks in Africa. One event which has helped to accelerate connectivity in Africa was the Addis Symposium on Telematics for Development in April 1995. […]

So what if the illusionist does trick us? Isn’t that what we want? Martyn Bedford says we must let magic keep its mystique So you’re on your way out of the concert hall, the music of one of the world’s great pianists still reverberating in your ears when someone sidles up alongside you like a […]

Andrew Muchineripi Soccer Today is D-day for the Bafana Bafana World Cup hopefuls as national coach Philippe Troussier trims his squad to 26 footballers with four more to drop out before the tournament begins. The squad faces friendlies against Zambia at FNB Stadium on May 20 and twice world champions Argentina in Buenos Aires five […]

David Bennun Foreign CD of the week `It is,” observed one visitor to my flat, “a bit bloody gloomy, isn’t it?” My visitor was referring to Massive Attack’s new CD, Mezzanine (Virgin), an album so dark that it seems to soak up the light in the room like a miniature black hole. It was playing […]

Greg Bowes Dance music tour In what promises to be one of the dance events of the year, a veritable who’s who of commercial and underground dance musicians and DJs have been assembled for this year’s Camel Experience. The series of parties – this year subtitled, for reasons unknown, Quadropheria – begins in Cape Town […]

John SeilerSOUTH AFRICA, LIMITS TO CHANGE: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF TRANSITION by Hein Marais (Zed/UCT Press, R150) Hein Marais is not the first observer of post-apartheid South Africa to point to the burgeoning African professional and entrepreneurial classes and their conspicuous consumption patterns. The recent book Comrades in Business captures this dynamic pithily in its […]

Krisjan Lemmer The man who gets this year’s Groot Marico public conscience award is Aboobaker Ismail. This week he went further than any other African National Congress official in owning up to responsibility for some of the horrors perpetrated by the “good guys” in the liberation struggle. Appearing before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in […]