Staff Reporter

Is the evidence against Osama bin Laden sufficient to unleash a war? Julian Borger in Washington and Ewen MacAskill As far as President George W Bush is concerned, Osama bin Laden is “wanted dead or alive” for the September 11 outrages. The phrase harked back to a bygone Texan age when a lawman’s strong hunch […]

GOLF Martin Gillingham and Andy Capostagno Details of thing being reviewed Next year’s President’s Cup is poised to become the first South African sporting victim of last week’s terror attacks in the United States. Sunday’s decision to postpone next week’s Ryder Cup until next September is almost certain to create a knock-on effect with the […]

The slowdown in the global economy could have positive effects for South Africa in the long term Mungo Soggot and Stefaans Brmmer The global recession that is likely to follow last week’s terror attacks on the United States will hit the South African economy in the short term. But economists say changed global conditions could […]

Julia Finch and Jill Treanor The full financial toll of last week’s terrorist attacks started to become apparent this week as a stream of big companies across Europe and the United States warned of sharp falls in sales and profits. The deluge of bad corporate news from more than 50 companies in the US alone […]

JULIAN BORGER, EWEN MACASKILL, Washington | Friday AS far as President George W Bush is concerned, Osama bin Laden is “wanted dead or alive” for the September 11 outrages. The phrase harked back to a bygone Texan age when a lawman’s strong hunch would have been enough to dispatch a posse on the fugitive’s trail, […]

Mail & Guardian reporter The development of the wind-up radio moved clockwork from the realm of children’s toys to the adult world. But a team at Technikon Witwatersrand intends to take wind-up power into the electronic age, with a project that should eventually result in a computer powered by a spring. Chris Bradum is manager […]

Buddy Maroun’s speed brigade just seems to keep rolling and even a 62kg burden might not be enough to prevent All Will Be Well taking a turn in the winner’s enclosure in Saturday’s Turffontein feature, the R125000 CT Brand Handicap over 1000m. The Badger Land gelding rounded off his seventh year with a gutsy win […]

channel vision Robert Kirby There can never be adequate description of the events last week in New York. Anyone with a television set will have seen the devastation as it occurred, watched the terrified people, heard the first witnesses. This was not second-hand, not a recording of some engagement of the day before. It was […]

There is a growing malaise in higher education, and it is damaging core academic functions. David Macfarlane reports Pessimistic about their academic futures, stressed in their jobs, and oppressed by newly bureaucratic modes of management, significant numbers of academics are opting out, or trying to. This is leaving tertiary institutions seriously stretched in their ability […]

Maggie Davey recalls the tragic “glamour” of war In the south of Uzbekistan the old Soviet railroad ran alongside the Afghanistan border for a stretch. Since the late 1800s after the Russian conquest of Tashkent and Samarkand, this railroad system, with the Transcaspian system, fed central Asia with both soldiers and the humdrum requirements of […]

AN Mpumalanga man found his brother-in-law’s decapitated body on a riverbank on Wednesday, just two months after he disappeared, police reported on Thursday. Michael Mgwenya of Blinkwater Farm, near White River, was fishing when he saw a large object wrapped in green cloth on the edge of the river. “He unwrapped the cloth and found […]

Cadres appear to have sold themselves for 30 pieces of silver NO blows BARRED Sipho Seepe The 1994 democratic election brought to an end centuries of racial and colonial domination of the continent. Credit is due to the men and women who defied and overcame extreme repression and dehumanisation. They heroically suffered mental and physical […]

Ten students from disadvantaged communities recently won bursaries totalling R2,1-million to enable them to study at Malaysia’s Multimedia University. Thintana Communications, a foreign consortium, awarded the bursaries and has committed more than R120-million over five years to projects like Unitele, aimed at improving maths and technology skills in South Africa. Telkom SA and Thintana now […]

Bongani Majola At the beginning of last year Morgan Motshabi and Sphiwe Gumbi had never sat in front of a computer. By the beginning of this year, they had qualifications as computer-assisted engineers and had landed good jobs in the drawing office of Bateman Engineering Ltd. A one-year computer-assisted draughting programme at the African Academy […]

In the bewildering days after Tuesday, I felt anger against the US’s self-righteous proclamations, overlaid with a religious veneer. How would five decades of US atrocities around the world, I asked people, compare to Tuesday’s atrocity? What about a look at the less respectable things America has done over the past 50 years, to see […]

food Valentine Cascarino At first I was convinced it was a hangover that triggered the feeling I was back in Paris. But when I returned to the newly established Congolese Restaurant in Yeoville two weeks later, French tourists dining with me felt the same way. With kwasa kwasa music constantly vibrating in the background, the […]

ABOUT 208 000 Malawians still suffering the after effects of devastating floods and drought earlier this year will soon receive about 1 000 tons of food from the World Food Programme . The food – which included maize, beans and salt – had been fortified with micronutrients and would benefit communities from seven districts in […]

Why do women want to look like skeletons? Is the media to blame, or is body-sculpting the new DIY? BODY LANGUAGE Gaby Wood If you invented a game called fantasy glossies, in which imaginary magazines had to be put together using the most marketable elements of everything on the news agent’s shelf, you might, in […]

Glenda Daniels More than 50% of young information technology experts in South Africa want to leave the country, a recent survey shows. And the International Labour Organisation says the IT skills gap worldwide will triple over the next couple of years, with a predicted 1,6-million jobs in Europe alone unfilled by next year. South African […]

Mungo Soggot and David Le Page South Africa’s revolutionary Mineral Rights Bill has been redrafted to make it more industry-friendly but it still raises doubts about whether it secures the tenure of mining companies and the continuity of existing mining operations. The new version of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Bill, submitted to Cabinet […]

Support for the United States could spark a hardline uprising in Pakistan Rory McCarthy In a stuffy room on the third floor of an ageing hotel in a smart Lahore suburb sat the men who threaten to bring Pakistan to its knees. More than 50 of the nation’s most hardline clerics met on Monday to […]

A recent report on Afrikaans in higher education has important implications for other indigenous languages, argues Gerrit Brand The draft recommendations of the Gerwel Advisory Committee on Afrikaans in Higher Education have evoked a lot of reaction, both positive and negative, in the Afrikaans community. Yet the other language communities in South Africa do not […]

THE United Nations offices in Pretoria were evacuated on Wednesday after police sniffer dogs reacted to two vehicles in the basement car park during a routine check, UN official John Ohiorhenuan said. The bomb squad was brought in and police evacuated everyone as a precaution, he said, but after a thorough search nothing suspicious was […]

One can only commiserate with the United States for the massive terrorist outrage visited upon it and more particularly the injured and families of the dead. All life is precious. As for George W Bush facing his moment of truth, I would rather say that it is not even the US but all of humanity […]

Suzan Chala Lack of managerial expertise is often cited as one reason for government failure to deliver. But the Free State provincial government is targeting this area of vulnerability: it’s sending its most senior officials back to the classroom. The Premier, Winkie Direko, senior politicians and heads of provincial departments in the provincial government have […]

It has been a busy, and sad, time for the Internet since the attacks on the United States David Shapshak As befits its status as the world’s communication medium, the Internet has been abuzz these past two weeks with the shock of the World Trade Centre bombings. For many, especially on that fateful Tuesday, it […]

Jaspreet Kindra Only three of the nine provinces are likely to elect provincial African National Congress office-bearers this year, amid a chaotic scenario where branches are being dissolved and reestablished in line with new municipal boundaries. ANC spokesperson Nomfanelo Mayosi-Kota says the Western Cape, Northern Cape and Gauteng are the only provinces likely to stage […]

Thuli Nhlapo While most ordinary men shy away from discussing girls’ issues in public, the King of the Zulu nation, Goodwill Zwelithini, and his loyal subjects still believe in the tradition of the annual reed dance where he proclaims girls’ graduation to womanhood. Traditionally, the king was expected to choose a wife from among the […]

AMERICANS who don’t support calls for war have started a petition which appears on the web here. The petition calls for the US to use moderation in its response to the terror attacks on New York and the Pentagon, to respect international institutions in makings its response, and to judge carefully the level of accountability […]

If the US co-operates with an African dictatorship, it is guilty of propping up an African tyrant; if it opposes the dictatorship, it is guilty of imposing American ideas of democracy on Africa; if it does nothing at all, it is guilty of “marginalising” the country. If the US acts, it is wrong; if it […]

Colloquium Wella Msimanga More than 30% of adults have never studied mathematics at school, 50% have never studied biological sciences and 55% have never studied physical and chemical science. This emerges from an article in a recent issue of the South African Journal of Science. The level of public understanding of science in South Africa […]

A degree in engineering provides graduates with numerous career opportunities Nicole Chidrawi Mention the word engineer and the picture of a person in a hard hat, building a bridge or surveying a piece of land, comes to mind. This image is sometimes far from the truth as engineers are involved in myriad projects: while some […]