Rupert Jones A cellular phone which thinks it is a cash machine is about to go on trial in Britain. The hybrid handset brings the dream of access to one’s cash any time, any place, anywhere a big step closer. Cellphone banking is not new, but the customer is unable to do much more than […]
Karlin Lillington Computer-generated worlds where people can interact in real-time over the Internet came closer to reality recently. This was the effect of MCI WorldCom’s quadrupling the capacity of its Very High Performance Backbone Network Service (vBNS) in California. “In essence this is a distributed Holodeck,” says MCI’s lead engineer for vBNS, Rick Wilder, referring […]
Charlene Smith In 10 years, the average life expectancy of South Africans may be 40 years, there will be fewer children and many will be in orphanages. Prison populations will be mostly sick and dying, there will be greater absenteeism in the workplace, and farmers will battle to find enough well people to harvest crops […]
The launch on Sunday of a new title is the first clear shot in a newspaper war likely to radically change the face of the South African media. The Sunday World, aimed at a wealthy, top-end black readership, hits the streets this weekend, drawing counter-attacks from its competition, the Sunday Times and City Press. Eight […]
Keith Henderson Prodigy will soon be in South Africa. Possibly one of the world’s most successful electronic/rock cross-over outfits, they will be taking to the stage and blasting their unique sound out in an audio and visual performance many South Africans have been itching to see for some time. Their manic, beat-invested brand of electronica […]
Matthew Krouse Down the tube The term makwerekwere has seeped into our diction over recent years, becoming descriptive of a range of foreign Africans that, as the lie has it, are easily identifiable. Stereotyped in popular culture as drug dealers, unwelcome street traders and corrupt businessmen, the foreigner is emerging as a stock symbol of […]
The date burns in the mind of Formula One executives and tobacco manufacturers like a glowing snout. On October 1 2006, the chequered flag will fall on cigarette sponsorship of the sport, and possibly not only in Europe. Now, with the opening of the 1999 season at Melbourne’s Albert Park this weekend, Formula One must […]
Deon Potgieter Boxing If he wins on Saturday night, Dingaan “The Rose of Soweto” Thobela will become the first South African to gain world titles for three different world bodies. Thobela will take to the ring at the Nasrec complex against the South American champion, Adrian Daneff, for the vacant International Boxing Organisation Welterweight title. […]
TOYOTA South Africa’s car assembly plant was closed for a fourth straight day on Thursday, hit by a strike over bonus pay, but a union official said members will return to work on Friday. “Our members have decided to go back to work on Friday after [we have read] Toyota’s financial statements due out today,” […]
Peter Vale: A SECOND LOOK The brave testimony of Dr Bridget O’Laughlin before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s amnesty committee provides a moment to pause and take a second look at the influential intellectual work of her friend and colleague, Ruth First, who was assassinated by an apartheid letter bomb in August, 1982. It also […]
If words are cheap for politicians, they are cheaper for journalists. We are free to criticise most decisions while seldom having to live with the consequences of what we might have advocated. Unlike politicians, we can afford to have poor foresight. But we always have excellent hindsight. This difference between politicians and journalists seldom seems […]
Peatlands, which take thousands of years to establish, are being exploited to make compost and potting soil, writes Rehana Dada Most gardeners buying plastic bags of “environmentally friendly” potting soil and compost are probably unaware that they are in fact contributing to the destruction of valuable wetlands protected by law. Unscrupulous profit-seekers often gouge this […]
Ferial Haffajee:TAKING STOCK Walking up the stairs to the infamous 10th floor of the Johannesburg Central police station, one realises it will take much more than a change of name to cleanse the tortured space that was John Vorster Square. The monolithic building hulks over the southern verges of the city, its police-blue exterior an […]
Charlene Smith Andrew Oberholzer, senior group product manager at Pfizer, makers of Viagra, is a tired man. He speaks to an average of 10 journalists a day – all asking the same questions. He is overseeing the mailing of 30 000 samples and medical information to doctors and pharmacies. Oberholzer is under the average age […]
Anthony Kunda Zambia’s government has warned Lusaka residents to avoid being on the streets at night and is beefing up its armed forces, following seven bomb blasts in the city this week. The warning came in the face of mounting accusations by the Angolan government of Zambian involvement in gun-running for Jonas Savimbi’s Unita forces […]
Coenraad Visser Never before have classical music lovers in Gauteng been offered a feast like they have this week. On Sunday, tenor sensation Johan Botha returned home for his first appearance on a professional stage since he left for Europe 10 years ago. And on Monday, the Orchestre National de France, with musical director Charles […]
WESTERN Province captain Craig Matthews and Border’s Makhaya Ntini have bowed out with injuries from the five-day Supersport Series cricket final which starts in East London on Thursday. Matthews has been suffering from an ankle injury while Ntini, who failed a fitness test on Thursday morning, has a hip strain. Ryan Joffe comes in for […]
IFP militants have been accused of plotting to derail the KwaZulu-Natal peace process in order to secure the province in the upcoming election, writes Wally Mbhele The African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party are planning an urgent meeting to salvage the peace process in the KwaZulu- Natal which has faltered since the appointment […]
Jack Schofield On the Web, pornography is just a misplaced keystroke away. Last week, Brian Milburn, president of California-based Solid Oak Software, said: “Our researchers have discovered thousands of registered domain names that are extremely similar to those of major companies. We call them `typo’ sites.” The increase in such sites was “an alarming trend”, […]
The battlefield of the real banking war has shifted to the corridors of Parliament. Howard Barrell reports The major banks, stung by perceptions that they don’t care about customers and charge as much as they can get away with for their services, begin hawking a new draft banking code of conduct around consumer groups this […]
Bob Mattes:A SECOND LOOK Results released by the Opinion ’99 consortium last week indicate that large numbers of voters have, at best, a foggy awareness of their elected leaders. President Nelson Mandela and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki are widely known and well-liked. Most people know about most of the major party leaders (but not all), […]
These are the bulk of the questions faxed to Magnus Heystek, at his request, before publication. He declined to make any comment. 1. How do you reconcile the fact that your company, Cream Publishing, bought stand 1 with the house for R650 000 while the trust bought stand 2 for R850 000? 2. At the […]
After initially neglecting the Internet, South Africa’s traditional media houses are now investing heavily in the next wave of media: online newspapers. Most major newspaper groups for the past two years have maintained a virtual presence on the World Wide Web, usually postings of their print stories and searchable archives of previous editions. But late […]
Karlin Lillington It’s about the stupidest site you’ll look at all week, but the URL has been flying across the Web as everyone mails it to friends: it’s the dancing hamsters at . If it doesn’t make you laugh, then you’re clearly the kind of person who enjoys reading Windows programming manuals. We’ve all prayed […]
Magnus Heystek appears to have created an eyebrow-raising conflict of interest in a property deal involving a family trust of which he is a trustee. Mungo Soggot and Belinda Beresford report High-profile financial adviser Magnus Heystek engineered a questionable R1,5-million property deal in which a family trust he oversees bought into land used for his […]
Susan Purn The almost complete collapse of medical care for prisoners, and the dangerous circumstances under which a district surgeon serving Leeuwkop prison was forced to work, saw her quitting the position last week with only 24 hours’ notice. Dr Liz Levendig, a former member of the Detainees’ Parents Support Committee in the 1980s, says […]
UGANDAN troops have killed 10 more Rwandan Hutu extremists suspected of having taken part in the massacre of eight foreign tourists in Uganda, a military source said on Friday. The Hutus, members of the Interahamwe youth militia held partly responsible for Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, were killed 15km across the border inside the Democratic Republic of […]
Mark Tran in New York Boxing Almost 20 years after Muhammad Ali retired from boxing, another Ali is poised to enter the ring, perhaps as soon as this summer. She is Laila Ali, his youngest daughter. Laila Ali, aged 21, trains at the Los Angeles Boxing Gym, turning up every night for sparring practice. One […]
The vacuum left by the transition from the old Medicines Control Council to the new regulator is bad news for consumers of complementary medicine. Aaron Nicodemus reports In warehouses, on loading docks and on natural food store shelves, a pitched battle is being fought over dietary supplements, vitamins and herbal remedies. The battle over “complementary […]
Suren Pillay I came to the University of the Western Cape in the late 1980s, at the tail-end of the post-1985 generation of school-leavers. Fresh from this experience, infused with dewy-eyed Marxism, it seemed a natural progression. If an alternative society was being built, then the seeds of it were being nurtured at “the home […]
Howard Barrell South Africans are headed for their most expensive election ever on June 2, costing the taxpayer and political parties a total of R2-billion. Voters will be saturated with media coverage extolling the virtues of parties, as politicians draw on the latest campaigning methods developed in Europe and the United States. By the time […]
Loose cannon:Robert Kirby Like so many I find myself touched by Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s now routine meditations on national virtue. His sense of right and wrong becomes more acute by the day, his recent utterances seldom lack florid moral embellishment. Homilies about truth and probity fair tumble from his lips. His speeches have that […]