A delegate hacked the conference network and was given an award typical of the Defcon conference that attracts enthusiasts and saboteurs alike Simon Edwards The crowds that descended on Las Vegas’s casinos, strip clubs and all-you-can-eat restaurants recently were a little different from the norm. They were a little more troublesome, too. For these thrill […]
Belinda Beresford South Africa’s military forces are recording a decline in the levels of HIV infection among soldiers used for international missions, although it is still not prepared to give anti-retroviral treatment to affected troops . Testing of about 11 000 South African National Defence Force (SANDF) members initially revealed 17% had HIV. The selected […]
Clinics in Soweto are failing to help youths seeking sexual advice and treatment. Suzan Chala reports The rights to confidentiality and privacy, informed consent and access to health care are in South Africa’s “patients’ rights charter”. But at Pimville clinic in Soweto, these seem to be privileges rather than rights. Teenagers seeking advice and treatment […]
The net is closing in on officials and contractors implicated in the security scandal that has rocked Telkom Stefaans Brmmer and Mungo Soggot Telkom pressed criminal charges this week against a controversial security company accused of colluding with Bheki Langa, the former number three at the parastatal who resigned under a cloud last month. Langa, […]
Ntuthuko Maphumulo Nigeria’s joy was Liberia’s sorrow on Sunday as the Super Eagles thrashed neighbours Ghana 3-0 to wrap up the final berth available to Africa for next year’s World Cup in Japan and Korea. Liberia’s former world footballer of the year, George Weah, could not accept defeat graciously and launched a vicious attack on […]
Ulrike Kistner on the world of work and the world of learning the making of a beautiful fit If job ads are anything to go by, hirers of educated free labour power in plentiful supply are looking for adepts in management, policy, strategy, service and leadership. Sought-after virtues include initiative, self-motivation, innovativeness, “enthusiasm for transformation”, […]
A union has accused ANC MPs of being bad bosses and says ‘baasskap’ is alive and well in Parliament Barry Streek The African National Congress has only about 100 staffers at Parliament, but is facing “a litany” of cases at the Labour Court and the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). In the most […]
Crumbled pieces of paper are all she has to show for the many trips she’s made to the local police Khadija Magardie and Xoli Nxumalo Since her divorce three years ago Mantoa Chabalala has been stalked, threatened, beaten, verbally abused, narrowly missed being shot in the head and had an undertaker turn up to collect […]
Stress and mental health issues are showing a worrying rise in higher education. Kate Coxon reports Simon is in his second year as a lecturer at a university in the south-east of England. In an average week he reckons he clocks up more than 60 hours and since starting the job the 28-year-old has lost […]
Barry Streek The government has launched a campaign to open up the fishing industry worth R2,5-billion a year to small-scale and subsistence fishers. The campaign also includes provision for poverty alleviation so, unlike commercial fishermen, those who fish for food security purposes don’t have to apply for fishing quotas. The announcement follows the expiry of […]
But unions say the new curriculum could fall flat on its face if implementation is not up to scratch David Macfarlane An exceptionally bold language policy forms a major part of the new school curriculum released in draft form this week. But the draft lacks any detailed budget for implementation, raising questions about how successfully […]
While today’s research style may be “RAEable”, it has become so unreadable it risks losing its audience, argues Les Back The piles of books, papers and reports have been dispatched to the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) panels from universities throughout Britain, but the effects on the quality of scholarly writing linger. The exercise is narrowing […]
Bongani Majola The recent land occupation in Bredell, near Kempton Park, dramatically highlighted the extent of South Africa’s housing problem. More than 5,5-million South Africans live in self-constructed, informal dwellings. Many of these people have insecure tenure and live in appalling conditions in squatter settlements. As of May the number of houses completed or under […]
The government should consult sufficiently on the retraining of under-qualified teachers Colloquium Hlengani Siweya The Ministry of Education, and its mathematics and science advisers, must stop sidelining academics in working out how best to retrain maths and science schoolteachers. The ministry must begin engaging with academics on the simplest but most effective approaches to deal […]
David Macfarlane All academic study involves extended periods of solitary work, but postgraduate courses most of all. Stepping from relatively structured and supportive bachelor-level courses to master’s and doctoral levels is daunting for many students sometimes overwhelmingly so, as high dropout rates at some institutions demonstrate. The University of the Western Cape (UWC) this year […]
Greyville celebrates the first weekend of the racing season with a 12-race programme on Saturday, including three grade 2 events and, of course, the R500000 grade 1 Gold Cup over 3200m. The traditional pipe-opener handicap has attracted a full field of 20, which includes David Payne’s Durban July third Double Reef. Stable jockey Kevin Shea […]
Familiarity has bred a bit of contempt, reports Martin Gillingham If the Olympic movement has reason to thank track and field’s late boss Dr Primo Nebiolo, then it is for his decision 10 years ago to double the frequency of the world athletics championships. It was a move motivated more by Nebiolo’s greed for broadcasting […]
In today’s economy, where you are doesn’t matter, it’s what you do and how well you do it that counts Deleen Wilson Business education in the 21st century will have to reflect and engage the major changes taking place in management demands around the world. But what will be the role of the increasingly popular […]
Marianne Merten The Cape High Court this week delivered one of South Africa’s first rulings on ethical and accountable conduct by state officials when it slammed as unconstitutional the actions by two state advocates in prosecuting the 1996 murder of Cape gang boss Rashaad Staggie. Cape Deputy Judge President Jeanette Traverso and Judge Dennis Davis […]
Mboniso Sigonyela It is rare that a company finds a non-executive of Vincent Mntambo’s calibre. He has a master’s degree in law from Yale and is credited with the miraculous turnaround at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration where he is chairperson. Mntambo joins the Aveng board with effect from July 31 as a […]
The Simpsons America’s favourite dysfunctional family. Jammed with cultural references, Matt Groening’s creation has maintained its high standards since 1989. King of the Hill The brainchild of Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge. The suburban humdrum of Hank Hill and family is given droll treatment in an intelligent show. Daria A cult success on both […]
Technikon research may still be in its infancy, but it is taking itself seriously and growing fast, says Cheryl Lombard, manager of the Technikon Programme of the National Research Foundation (NRF). Before Parliament allowed technikons to award degrees in 1993, nobody encouraged or expected them to engage in research. The NRF’s financial support of technikon […]
The mystery shareholder in Beige who is now trying to get his money back after suspected fraud and theft was uncovered, is an entrepreneur who sold his property development business last year and bought a well-stocked game farm. The small-time private investor, Chris Schutte, had converted the bulk of his investment portfolio into cash just […]
For these bikers, happiness is a fast bike, writes Leila Amanpour Bikers and Hell’s Angels wannabes, usually associated with white culture, were never a popular sight in Soweto. Even now, some Sowetans regard bikers as the “bad guys”, but for Soweto’s number-one biker gang, the Eagles, friendship and family are paramount to their lives. For […]
Glenda Daniels The tripartite alliance is balanced on a knife-edge as talks deadlocked this week between the African National Congress and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) over the government’s privatisation policies. Cosatu says it will engage in a two-day strike on August 29 and 30 with a build-up of half-day strikes and […]
Plans to develop a perlemoen farm in a biosphere reserve have been met with objections Barry Streek A decision by the national and Western Cape governments to allow a perlemoen (abalone) farm in the pristine Pringle Bay area, located in the buffer zone of the country’s only United Nation-recognised biosphere, has triggered strong criticism from […]
Thuli Nhlapo visits Johannesburg hospital, where male and female patients are forced to share a ward The CEO of Johannesburg hospital has confirmed that “at times, especially in winter”, the hospital puts patients of the opposite sex in the same ward. “We have a huge number of patients in this hospital. Currently we have a […]
Jeremy Cronin writes (July 20) that the “key achievement” of the South African Communist Party was to rethink the communist project. The seminal work in this regard was Joe Slovo’s Has Socialism Failed? (1990) which argued as Cronin puts it that the “key weakness in the Soviet system was a tragic undermining of democracy”. Cronin […]
Peter Kingston Here’s a whopping conundrum. For eight years you’ve been toiling on your thesis about the British post-war far left, as it happens and you’re within a spit of the doctorate. The examiners want you to rejig the thesis introduction and resubmit it. On the other hand, a song you’ve written for your band […]
Alun Munslow Over the years the practice of history has witnessed a good many shifts and turns. Since the 1960s, for example, the discipline has experienced a social science turn, a cliometric or statistics turn, a women’s history turn, a cultural history turn and so on. These are not fads. Each has developed and still […]
The Mail &Guardian is one of only three national weekly newspapers to have posted significant year-on-year circulation increases in the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) certificate issued on August 2. The declining circulation figures for most urban daily and weekly newspapers reveal one thing: South Africans are reading less. Of course there are always […]
Martin Gillingham South Africa’s athletics selectors have performed a remarkable volte face and secretly invited top 400m runner Arnaud Malherbe to join the team in Edmonton. Last week’s Mail & Guardian reported that South Africa would be travelling to Canada without a specialist relay squad. The men’s 4x400m quartet is one of South Africa’s few […]