General

By Muhammad Karim I can’t understand why the media, the West and everyone else who engaged in the “Let’s Draw Muhammad” contest recently couldn’t, in all their secular intelligence, attempt to first UNDERSTAND and then act instead of the other way round. I am also extremely disappointed with Zapiro for simply “jumping on the bandwagon” […]

On reading Charlene Smith’s two recent blogs on her utter nightmares with Standard Bank while in Italy, I immediately remembered narrowly escaping a bank and travel incident when living in China that still has me shuddering with the possible consequences. Years ago my wife and I were about to go on holiday from Shanghai to […]

Nuruddin Farah, one of the extraordinary novelists of our times, succinctly captured — in his novel entitled Secrets — the beginnings of Somalia’s civil war. Kalaman, the protagonist, relates what he was going through as the tragedy unfolded: “I sat in the car. I was a storm-beaten, lonely man. I was sad. I was mournful. […]

When South Africa became the rainbow nation in 1994, much was expected of the country that had transformed itself from the egregious system of apartheid into one of the most modern democracies in the world. Founded upon a Constitution that is the match of any on the planet in terms of guaranteeing the rights of […]

With all the concerns about Bafana Bafana’s chances of making it through the first round of the 2010 World Cup, the host nation appears to have been handed a lifeline. It comes in the form of the mighty vuvuzela, a plastic trumpet which emits a noise that has been compared to a swarm of bees, […]

By Ilham Rawoot Some readers seem to have gotten the wrong idea about Amabhungane’s coverage of the strip-club industry — coverage that we plan to continue. Some comments are that I, as the writer, am a prude, that I am against the decriminalisation of prostitution, and that what I am writing about in this regard […]

“Who at all the pies?” shouted Carlos Alberto Parreira as he milled about the Bafana Bafana cafeteria. Aaron Mokoena, having recently arrived from England, was about to dig into some green Thai curry when he hard his coaches rancour, and replied, “Not me coach. I’ve just come from a place that is pie central.” Parreira […]

Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza, the gay couple who dared to stage an illegal same-sex wedding in Malawi, have been sentenced to 14 years in prison with hard labour. The pair was sentenced by a Malawi court on Thursday pursuant to their arrest on December 28 following a symbolic wedding. They were subsequently denied bail […]

By Odirile Mekwa I sat on the psychologist’s soft leather couch and he asked us to play a game called “association”. I take it most people have seen this game in movies. The “shrink” pulls out a picture and the patient says the first thing that springs to mind. The game we played was with […]

  At first glance, Microsoft needs to make a very convincing argument to make people take note of Office 2010. After all, it’s just another release of Office. Just about anyone would agree that Microsoft Office is by far the most feature-rich productivity suite out there, but this great advantage also makes it very difficult […]

By Robyn Clark It was 4am when it started. First, there were just the sounds of bare feet along the corridor of the dormitory. In a matter of minutes, there was a flurry of activity in the girls’ bathroom, as steam poured out of the bathroom door. There were shrieks and shouts emanating from the […]

By Muggie van Staden One of the biggest misconceptions about open source software (OSS) in the enterprise is that it is software that can be rolled out without the involvement of a vendor. But in reality, in any enterprise software deployment, there will always be someone that needs to play the role that the vendor […]