/ 22 January 2018

Unembargoed: Mail & Guardian January 19 to 25

Get your fix of the M&G here.
Get your fix of the M&G here.

NEWS

Slice of life: Find a purpose in faith

Wearing the hijab is an incredible tool of dawah. It’s like a call to consciousness, to remember God.

Bantu comes out swinging for De Lille

BFFs? The UDM leader sparks speculation by offering the embattled mayor a shoulder to cry on.

DA falls in behind its KwaZulu-Natal leader

“The challenge the DA faces across the country is around emotional connection with black voters. That’s a reality and we must face it.”

Cyril tiptoes around JZ’s removal

The ANC president’s conciliatory approach to his predecessor doesn’t please all his supporters

SACP: ANC must show us love or we may just go it alone

The SACP says the future of the alliance depends on the willingness of the ANC to reconfigure it. If not, the SACP says it will contest the 2019 elections independently

School blues: Parents and migration

Thousands of children in the Western Cape and Gauteng have yet to be placed in schools

Abrahams is going nowhere, yet

Cyril Ramaphosa would be jumping the legal gun if he tried to act on the prosecutions head now

Orania pins its hopes on Ramaphosa

The Orania movement has revived its call for an independent Afrikaner homeland in South Africa

It’s a tricky business to track down Gupta assets

This week news broke that the Asset Forfeiture Unit is targeting companies associated with allegations of state capture, which in turn revolve around the Gupta family

Dairy farm puts Guptas directly in firing line

The stench of rotting cow carcasses will pale compared with the stink the Estina probe will cause

Land reform bid enrages amakhosi

A parliamentary panel and the ANC want King Zwelithini’s Ingonyama Trust to be dissolved

Prisons spurn queer people’s rights

The distinction between men and women prisoners leaves others open to abuse

Shezi delivers another blow to Dlamini

The minister’s ex-adviser is throwing her under the bus as he heads to court to get his job back

Motata probe could make history

A decade after the judge’s drunk driving incident, he may face impeachment if found guilty of gross misconduct

Municipality’s billion-rand delinquency

Calls are mounting for the Vhembe council to be held to account for grievous mismanagement

KwaZulu-Natal ANC factions ready for battle

Axed KwaZulu-Natal economic development MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu has emerged as the favourite of the anti-Jacob Zuma faction in the province to take over as provincial chairperson of the ANC

Tough new regulations hit Western Cape borehole users

As of noon on Monday, almost every domestic borehole user in the Western Cape started to break a rule that was, at the time, less than 72 hours old

Sea water is a health risk, says profs

Academics warn that the desalination plants could leave Capetonians with a foul taste in their mouths.

BHEKISISA

Why your children’s back-to-school lunch box staples may be dangerous.

Worried your child could be at risk of contracting the bug as they head back to school? You might have to leave polony off the menu

Forced abortions: The new war on women?

Partners and families allegedly drugged women and in some cases physically restrained them as doctors performed the procedures

Women held prisoner, forced into sex to pay hospital bills

Hospitals are detaining hundreds of thousands of people against their will every year – many of them mothers and their newborn babies – simply because they are too poor to pay their medical bills, a study has found.

BUSINESS

National budget overload piles up

Public service unions negotiating wage increases blame budget constraints on reckless governance

Step aside bitcoin, here comes altcoin

Bubbles and risks notwithstanding, South Africa is going crazy over cryptocurrencies old and new

Unshackling license professions would create jobs

Licensing doesn’t stop bad behaviour, just speak to the chartered accountants at KPMG or Steinhoff to see how little protection is actually built into the licensing process

CIPC’s net should catch other big fish

An analyst welcomes the moves against firms linked to state capture, but says it shouldn’t stop there

App-only bank aims to cut you in

Not only will your banking costs be greatly reduced, you could become a part owner

Who the fax is still sending faxes?

Trying to buy a new fax machine at one of the big retail shops is equivalent to winning the jackpot in a lottery draw that you didn’t even buy a ticket for

AFRICA

Too soon to trust Ethiopia’s reforms

As long as critics are silenced, the country is far from advancing human rights

Zim preps for first post-Mugabe poll

The historic vote will either make or break the legitimacy of the ‘new’ Zanu-PF

Fake medicine is real business in Africa

There is nothing covert about Roxy, a huge market in Abidjan selling counterfeit medicine, the cause of about 100 000 deaths annually in the world’s poorest continent, according to the WHO

Southern Africa’s rights problem

Space is shrinking for activists, journalists and opposition leaders on the continent

FRIDAY

We’re complicit in our own exploitation

Ever since I moved to Kenya, each year another hottot story comes out about an East African citizen abused and sometimes killed while working in near slave conditions in the Middle East

On our Lists this week: Sol Plaatjie, Trinidad James & Neo Muyanga

In between working on Friday copy, this is what the team reads, listens to and watches

My enemy’s enemy is a fighter

The H&M child model, who is black and in an offensive hoodie, is just one example of racism and harassment

SS Mendi ritual breaks new ground

This story is one that insists on being retold, even when the pages of history books refuse to hold it. For years the story has been passed down orally as lore. On the morning of February 21 1917, the SS Darro, a much bigger ship, hit the SS Mendi straight on

Variations on a different blue

On the eve of the first showing of their collaborative work in South Africa, artists Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh speak to Alex Dodd about beauty, stereotypes and the unfathomable eroticism of abstract shapes

The granular affects of the ordinary

We contain multitudes in our everydayness. Youlendree Appasamy tries to unpick the meaning – or lack of it – in the ordinary interactions and feelings

When we speak of London

In her debut novel, Olumide Popoola easily switches her roles, inhabits and juxtaposes conflicting worlds and revels in the joy of expression

No ordinary reading life

When the literary world seems beyond reach, what options are there for those who struggle to read?

Stranger than fiction

Growing up, most of the stories I read were based in places I could only imagine, or visualize because I’d seen them on television and in pictures

COMMENT & ANALYSIS

Zuma’s exit won’t be swift or dignified

Unlike Thabo Mbeki, the president has too much at stake to step down without a monumental fight

EDITORIAL: News media prove their worth

President Jacob Zuma has not tried a Donald Trump-style “fake news awards” but his official statements feature the word “misleading” and similar sentiments

EDITORIAL: Saint Cyril, earn your halo

Cyril Ramaphosa looks presidential, laughs with just the right lilt, smiles with just the right candour and talks with just the right intonations to assure us he’s not Jacob Zuma

Letters to the editor January 19 to 25

Our readers write in about graduates, H&M and Cyril Ramaphosa

First day of the laaitie’s next year

uZoks is stoked about his new school – there’s nothing faux English old school tie about it

ANC reclaims its central mission – land

After 1994 the party lost its way in its quest to reclaim the land but it’s now back on track

Feminism’s got its groove back

The Trump era seems to have revitalised the urgency to tackle gender inequality

An H&M mannequin speaks

It was horrendous, as you can imagine. A wave of red overalls — a veritable sea — came rushing down the aisles frothing, fuming

Learning can’t prosper in a broken society

Social ills, plus the effect of poverty, are reflected in our schools and require redress at many levels

ConCourt ruling on UFS missed the point

“It is absolutely impossible to provide language of choice without indirectly discrimination on the basis of race”

SPORT

‘You have to dream’

Superstar Samuel Eto’o advises young African footballers to be the best by playing with the best

What a difference a summer makes!

Three months ago, South African cricket was in the doldrums. Now the sun has risen on better days

 

M&G Slow