Maddy Costa CD OFTHEWEEK It’s not hard to see why people find Nick Cave irritating. The reasons are stamped all over his 11th album with the Bad Seeds, No More Shall We Part (Mute). Here we have the vehement, anguished, begging cries to God, the churning gothic atmosphere, the obsession with death and the histrionic […]
Ufrieda Ho The Nan Hua Temple in Bronkhorstspruit rises like a displaced pagoda in the middle of fields of sun-bleached highveld grass. For the new abbess of the Buddhist temple, these contrasts and contradictions are opportunities to fire up the great melting pot of modern culture. Venerable Man Ya (47), who joined the temple at […]
Belinda Anderson Mediswitch began in the Usko stable, now Bytes Technology, and although its founders were excited about the prospects of the business, it never broke even under the old management. But having moved aggressively, it now more than dominates its space, and recently teamed up with one of its big competitors PQ Africa’s QEDI. […]
Ntuthuko Maphumulo soccer The type of South African soccer that has entertained township fans for many years has been called diski. It’s based on short-passing, flair, passion and a love of the game and it’s known as samba football in Brazil. MTN last year launched a six-a-side version of the people’s game and named it […]
David Shapshak Apart from leaving the world with his crazy, eccentric comic genius, Douglas Adams created an online version of his famous eponymous travel-guide novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The online version, h2g2 (www. h2g2.com), is named after the Guide and is every bit as brilliant as any of Adams’s off-the-wall novels. It […]
When Steve Gibson’s website was repeatedly attacked by a hacker, he discovered a secret society of cyber-anarchists. Stuart Millar reports In one corner, Steve Gibson, world-renowned computer security expert with his own research corporation, regular adviser to the United States federal authorities and former child genius. In the other, a 13-year-old amateur hacker with a […]
Marianne Merten The Cape Town unicity committee established to vet public submissions on renaming two of the city’s oldest streets has declined to deal with fraudulent petitions and barred the media from having access to the documents for now. The Mail & Guardian reported last week that many of the petitions purporting to support the […]
David McKay Anglo American, the United Kingdom-listed mining group, is forecast to suffer at least a one-fifth reduction in income from diamonds this financial year amid weakening confidence in the United States economy. That will be the implication of sales figures delivered by Anglo’s 45%-held subsidiary, De Beers, on June 19. The diamond group is […]
David Shapshak It seems almost silly to have a remote control for a laptop. But if you are doing endless PowerPoint presentations the infrared device is a very welcome peripheral. It even has a built-in laser pointer and is appropriately slick and silver, much like the laptop itself. The remote is one of the features […]
It is 25 years since the Soweto uprising. Jeremy Baskin examines three new books that reflect on that seismic event Where were you on June 16 1976? The question has an iconic status among South Africans of a certain age, the way Americans remember where they were when JF Kennedy was shot. Three new books […]
Roshila Pillay ‘The Ray Ban advert with the vampires,” drools Eloise Hendricks (19) when asked what her favourite advertisement is. A business communications student at Pretoria Technikon, Hendricks cannot afford the Ray Ban sunglasses. However, she says the Ray Ban advert has had a major impact on her choice of sunglasses. Many students agree that […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni South Africans who wish to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the June 16 Soweto uprising but cannot afford to attend the various events will for the first time honour the young heroes through cyberspace. The South African History Online project (Saho) has published a special multimedia, interactive focus on its website […]
THE Nigerian government privatisation agency on Wednesday confirmed reports it had found a 42,5-billion naira ($370-million) hole in the pension funds of the state-run telecoms firm Nitel. “Nitel pension (fund) is … presently underfunded thus leaving 2,5-billion naira instead of 45-billion naira,” the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) said in a statement. However the reason […]
Ntuthuko Maphumulo soccer Bafana Bafana and The Democratic Republic of Congo have both already qualified for the African Cup of Nations finals in Mali next year and the match between the sides at King’s Park in Durban on Sunday afternoon is being billed as a “celebration”. But the home team will be playing for more […]
Bottles of Le Vie de Luc mineral water sport the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund logo without permission Stefaans Brummer The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund has found itself in bed with a business linked to Mafia don Vito Palazzolo but the fund protests that it is an unwilling partner and says it has asked for an […]
The reaction by the office of Peter Marais, the Democratic Alliance mayor of Cape Town, to the Mail & Guardian’s expos of fraudulent vote rigging in his campaign to rename two city streets is unsurprising. Marais and his acolytes have claimed that political opponents planted the forged votes with the M&G to discredit him and […]
Khadija Magardie Poor salaries, lack of adequate training and increasing attacks on its members continue to plague the ranks of the South African Police Service (SAPS). These issues, with the threat posed by privatisation to workers in the public service, dominated the agenda of the fourth national congress of the country’s largest police union, the […]
Mail & Guardian reporter Mail & Guardian assistant editor Belinda Beresford has been named overall winner of the United States South Africa Health Reporting Awards. Beresford was selected for her piece on HIV/Aids entitled “None so blind as those who will not see”, one of several submitted. The panel of judges, comprising journalists and US […]
Pule waga Mabe Observers and role players within the youth sector expect the National Youth Commission (NYC) to be addressing issues of youth unemployment, HIV/Aids and apathy. But there is little sign of any direct action at the commission’s plush offices, where more than three directorates deal with policy, communications and finance. Its electro-magnetic doors […]
Barry Streek, Glenda Daniels and David Macfarlane Coleman Andrews offered to resign eight months ago as CEO of South African Airways (SAA), because he was frustrated with government and Transnet interference in the running of the airline but he was persuaded to stay on for longer by former Transet managing director Saki Macozoma. The Mail […]
Deon Potgieter boxing Day two of the New York trial that will shed light on the heavyweight division was completed on Tuesday, with the court scheduled to sit again on Monday. Promoter Cedric Kushner and former heavyweight world champion Lennox Lewis are suing Don King, Hassim Rahman and Rahman’s managers, alleging interference and breach of […]
South Africans’ mad rush towards all that glitters, tingles and titillates will ensure high HIV/Aids rates for the foreseeable future Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala There is a joke making the rounds among pre-teen girls in KwaZulu-Natal that goes like this: “Why is Jennifer Lopez so poor? Answer: Because her love don’t cost a thing.” With reference to […]
There’s nothing sentimental about globalisation and South Africa cannot afford to pass up an opportunity to steal ahead of competitors. With the Asian Tigers fumbling and Latin America headed for trouble, South Africa’s time has arrived. In the wake of the emerging market crisis in 1997/1998 South Africa emerged robust compared with its emerging-market peers. […]
Peter Robinson cricket One of the least fearsome sights of recent weeks has been the United Cricket Board’s (UCB) disciplinary committee girding its loins to take swift and decisive action. Herschelle Gibbs should be able to vouch for that. Gibbs, who has been in so much hot water over the past couple of years that […]
British documentary film-maker Ben Cashdan is on a nationwide crusade to convert people to his own brand of anti-globalisation Alex Sudheim One of the strange facts of life seems to be that aspirant independent film-makers wear black blazers. Whether to symbolise dark, subversive intellect or solemn commitment to the I-mean-business-in-an-anarchic-sort-or-way school of cool, the blazer […]
whipping boy One of my favourite movies is Forrest Gump, the story of a fool who couldn’t lose. And anyone foolish enough to take the advice of this column last week will know the feeling. Having always been aware that boastfulness is evidence of a flawed character, especially in tipsters, I desisted after casually pointing […]
Rumours of drug use surround the top runners for this year’s Comrades marathon Martin Gillingham If you can come to terms with the fact that the winner of Saturday’s Comrades marathon might well be a cheat then you’ve every reason to consider an entire Saturday spent glued to the box watching the 90km slog from […]
The unpredictable French are first up on the menu for the Springboks this year Andy Capostagno It seems a lifetime ago, but it is in fact only eight years and two weeks since France and South Africa last locked horns at Ellis Park. In those far-off days Springbok coach Ian McIntosh’s most frequently expressed concern […]
Moves are under way to address the public transport crisis, especially to get unroadworthy taxis off the roads. Glenda Daniels reports South Africa is on a massive collision course if the overhaul of the taxi industry does not speed up, if more money is not spent on roads and if plans to close sections of […]
Andrew Gilder looks at the background to the launch of a performing arts network last week Some observers argue that human history has a cyclical nature that historical events recur over time. Most commentators use timeframes of centuries, or even millennia, to track this repetition. It is with a sense of ironic dj vu, therefore, […]
Neil Sonnekus review OFTHEWEEK They were seven young men whose heads were filled with ganga and idealism. They wanted to build the new South Africa and their navety cost them their lives. They became the victims of one of the most cynical police operations in the mid-Eighties and they became known as The Guguletu Seven. […]
The idea of a youth parliament was first mooted by the ANCYL last year. This month it is to become a reality Evidence wa ka Ngobeni On June 26 seats often occupied by members of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces will be filled by hundreds of South African youth leaders to […]