When it comes to snooping in cyberspace, internet giant Google is the online world’s biggest brother, according to a new report. The California-based company, famed for its enlightened style of management, is painted in a less flattering light in the first attempt to rank internet companies on their respect for users’ privacy.
Bongani Ndodana-Breen’s new opera tackles the complex character of a national heroine, writes Brent Meersman
A Canadian man who was arrested driving a borrowed motorised wheelchair while drunk has been convicted of impaired driving, officials said on Thursday. Patrick Shanahan (35) was on his way home from a pub in a Toronto suburb in December 2004 at about 1.15am when he was arrested, said Corporal Jodi Dawson of the Peel Regional Police.
Two weeks after stepping down as president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo is hitting the books and resuming university studies, close aides said on Friday. The 70-year-old retired general, who stepped down on May 29 having served a constitutional maximum of two four-year terms, began coursework at the National Open University in Lagos on Thursday.
United States President George Bush on Thursday night pledged his country to a "substantial" cut in greenhouse gas as the West’s leading industrial nations agreed to negotiate a new climate change deal within the next two years. Bush agreed to "seriously consider" a proposal that would result in a 50% cut in carbon emissions by 2050.
This month’s ANC policy conference, and its national conference in December, inspire both concern and confidence. The concern arises because the stakes are enormous: the outcome of these meetings will affect the course of South African history for many years to come.
An intended strike at cellphone services operator Vodacom has been averted. The group said in a statement late on Thursday that management and the Communication Workers’ Union [CWU] "have engaged in discussions resulting in the intended industrial action of Vodacom CWU members being suspended, pending successful negotiations".
A British stag-party reveller nearly missed his wedding after getting into deep water with Slovakian authorities when he swam naked in a city centre fountain. Stephen Mallone (25), who is due to get married in a few days, was sentenced to two months in prison at the end of May by a Bratislava court.
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel on Thursday asked Parliament to extend the window period of the Small Business Tax Amnesty by another month, to June 30. He made the request while tabling the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill that will, among other tax policy changes, provide over R8,8-billion-worth of personal income-tax relief.
The panel of judges for 2007.
When Gugu Mdlalose, a natural science teacher at Sizanani Primary School in Dube, Soweto, started a small food gardening project in her school in the late 1990s, she did not anticipate the effect this would have on her poverty-stricken community. Neither did she know it would bring her the 2004 Woolworths Trust Eduplant Programme award for the Gauteng province.
Jay Naidoo, who is currently the chairperson of the Development Bank of Southern Africa and of the J&J Group, has been appointed to the board of directors of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the United Nations specialist agency for information and communication technologies based in Geneva.
A British police force is to put more officers on the streets during full moons because they believe the lunar cycle may be linked to violent behaviour, a spokesperson said on Tuesday. Sussex Police have found that drinkers in the seaside city of Brighton and Hove are particularly aggressive during full moons.
Ethiopia has charged 55 opposition members with trying to launch a rebellion, a government prosecutor told said on Wednesday. More than one hundred opposition figures are already on trial, accused of plotting a coup after disputed 2005 elections.
Former AMLive host John Perlman has joined Johannesburg radio station KAYA FM and will present his first show “Today with John Perlman” between 6pm and 7pm on Monday. His first guest is businessman Tokyo Sexwale who has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate.
The nation is a bathtub. Oh my God, it’s brain draining! Recently I heard that somebody was publishing a piece accusing me and others of "selling out to the West". Now, I wish I could announce that I did not care, but in truth my stomach coiled for a while, guiltily.
A poor harvest due to adverse weather coupled with a worsening economic crisis will leave more than four million people in Zimbabwe in need of food assistance by early next year, according to a report issued on Tuesday by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and the United Nations World Food Programme.
I’ve read an article on the <i>M&G Online</i> that says having a gold card is all for show. I tend to agree with that. I went in to my bank recently, and asked if I really needed my "elite cheque account" with a gold cheque card. The adviser’s answer was, that this will count in my favour when applying for a home loan or vehicle finance, as apposed to having say a classic cheque account, writes a reader.
Just in case anyone should desire such a thing, a South Korean firm has filed a patent in the United States for a musical washing machine. The design for a machine with a built-in MP-3 player and speakers "is just a concept art but we have the technology to produce a washing machine that makes little noise", LG Electronics spokesperson Kim Hyung-Jong said.
The plight of overworked Japanese employees was highlighted at the weekend when it emerged that a policeman had stabbed himself in the stomach and tried to make it look like an assault so that he could take time off work. Tomoyuki Mukaide had worked for two months without a break after an earthquake that struck Ishikawa prefecture in north-west Japan.
It was Moshe Dayan, the hero of Israel’s 1967 victory, who set the tone for what was to follow: "We are waiting for a telephone call," the one-eyed general said disdainfully as the frontline Arab states — Egypt, Jordan and Syria — reeled from their crushing defeat.
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon on Monday hailed the opening of the landmark trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor on war-crimes charges as "an important day" for the fight against impunity.
The mother of jailed Chinese journalist Shi Tao wept and punched the air on Monday as she accepted a press-freedom award on her son’s behalf from world media bosses in Cape Town. "He has only done what any courageous journalist should do," Gao Qinsheng told an annual gathering of the World Association of Newspapers.
A Greek police officer in the northern city of Salonika has been arrested for shooting a motorist who double parked his car to grab breakfast, a police source said on Monday. The incident happened early on Sunday morning in Oreokastro, a quiet suburb of Greece’s northern capital.
The trial of Charles Taylor — the former president of Liberia and the first former African leader to face an international court — opens in The Hague on Monday where he is accused of war crimes during the diamond-fuelled conflict in neighbouring Sierra Leone. The prosecutor will open the trial, which is expected to last for a year, by detailing 11 war crimes charges against Taylor.
I must say that I am gobsmacked by the responses in these pages to a couple of observations I made in this column relating to the new Chinatown in Cyrildene, east Johannesburg. On reflection, I must have been losing it. I was guilty of becoming complacent, and writing as if regular readers were fully aware of my irreverent style. Bad mistake.
The article "My night of hell at Jo’burg Gen" (May 25) Âcreates the false impression of a generally appalling hospital with uncaring and unprofessional staff. This is not what Johannesburg Hospital stands for. If a patient leaves our hospital feeling the care she or he received was less than satisfactory, writes Sagie Pillay.
Debate on how to strengthen the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), occasioned by its 10th anniversary, will not achieve the desired outcome if led by critics who are distanced from the institution. This includes the press. Earlier this year, NCOP chairperson Mninwa Mahlangu remarked that in general, the media had scant knowledge of the council.
Diamonds may be forever, but it turns out that a gay boy is actually a girl’s best friend, according to a new book that is the first definitive guide to the "fag hag". That many straight women set great store by gay male friends won’t surprise fans who’ve watched Will and Grace sharing the secrets of their souls.
They are members of a hidden army who inhabit a curious in-between world. Tough, heavily armed private security guards who love the adrenalin buzz rub along with high-flying businesspeople and contractors. Blue collar workers trying to make a quick buck or do their bit for the cause are thrown together with poorly paid cooks, cleaners and laundry workers from across the globe.
A <i>Guardian</i> investigation has found evidence of serious irregularities at the heart of the process the world is relying on to control global warming. The Clean Development Mechanism, which is supposed to offset greenhouse gases emitted in the developed world by selling carbon credits from elsewhere, has been contaminated by gross incompetence.
It must have been déjà vu for some of the commissioners and panel members of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) on Friday when they were once again confronted with a pay-TV licence applicant that didn’t — to a large extent — do its homework.