All the stories from February 16 are free to read
‘Miners shot while hiding or fleeing’
Six years on, police describe their horror as ‘rogue’ officers mowed down Marikana strikers
Murder trail leads to Botswana
Chilling emails suggest Vusi Mhlanzi was on the cusp of exposing top officials before he was killed
Slice of life: The taste of Africa
“It was the simple things I experienced there that really made me live my blackness; my Africannessâ€
The bones echo the cry of the return of the ancestral land
Dirk Toto and his sister Rina Ndara are to lodge a claim on the land where Maremane once stood and where their ancestors are buried. They hope to return the remains of their grandfather, freedom fighter Makgolokwe Toto, who died on Robben Island
De Lille thanks the ANC for saving her job
The mayor lives to fight another day as the opposition scold DA’s ‘racism’
Mud slung as Free State leadership race intensifies
Supporters of Free State premier hopeful Thabo Manyoni are planning to push for the reinstatement of the 200 fraud and corruption charges against his main political opponent, arts and culture MEC Mathabo Leeto.
Outcry over Inxeba’s porn rating
The controversial — and award-winning — film can now only be screened in adult-only cinemas
Nothing uniform about school wear
The price tag on pupils’ outfits has parents up in arms but suppliers say they’re short-changed
It’s déjà vu: Grant payments in crisis
It’s D-day but social grant beneficiaries are in the same place they were a year ago and key questions still remain
‘We told him long ago why he had to go’
Andrew Mlangeni says the ANC’s integrity body gave Zuma a list of reasons to step down last year
Sisulu the frontrunner to become Ramaphosa’s deputy
An 11th-hour meeting between President Cyril Ramaphosa and Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has prompted speculation that she may be selected to take over as deputy president of the country
Zuma’s corrosive legacy was self-inflicted
He worked his way up from poverty and imprisonment for his political beliefs to become the country’s leader but he will be remembered for a presidency that hurt the people
Courts ride out the Zuma storm
South Africa’s judiciary has been a thorn in Jacob Zuma’s side from the outset
Eight in court for milking fiscus
Ajay Gupta did not appear in the Bloemfontein regional court and is regarded as a fugitive by the police
A comrade rises — before the fall
There was a time long ago, and not so long ago, when Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma represented the potential the liberation of an oppressed people held. It was 1990 and a country teasing with the idea of that freedom was emerging. It was a time when the man ‘from the intestines of Zululand’ represented more than himself. Here is Zuma, in his own words, as recorded by The Weekly Mail, the forerunner of the Mail & Guardian
Only stagnant pools remain after Zunami
Years of underhand scheming were paying off handsomely but the very institutions Zuma sought to undermine were finally his undoing
BHEKISISA
Trump’s gag rule one year on
Governments and even anonymous do-gooders are stepping in to fill the funding gap left by the US decision, but their pockets will never be deep enough
Life Esidimeni: Officials could face culpable homicide charges
Those who oversaw the removal of mental health patients could face the full wrath of the law as could those standing by as KZN’s cancer care fails.
AFRICA
Democracy’s warrior loses last fight
Zimbabwe’s Morgan Tsvangirai, a man of the people who for decades defied the regime, has died.
Even the great make mistakes
In the wake of his death, many glowing words will be written and spoken about Morgan Tsvangirai. He deserves them. But he also made mistakes and we need to talk about them.
He lived to see his people face freedom
There is no way we can ever tell the post-independence story of Zimbabwe without mentioning Morgan Tsvangirai as a major cog. He moved an era.
The unexceptional Johnson Sirleaf
The Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership was established more than a decade ago, with the aim of recognising and rewarding exceptional African leadership. Too often, it has risked achieving the opposite.
Trans victory opens the door
A legal ruling in Botswana has set an example for other countries in the region
Batswana queers push for change
They are using fashion and art — and meetings with traditional leaders — to foster acceptance
Exiled Zambian rapper stirs pot
Like all good poets, Fumba Chama, aka Pilato, likes his metaphors. The Zambian rapper knows that imagery is more powerful than mere words — and, he is discovering, far more dangerous.
BUSINESS
The Budget will test Cyril’s mettle
He has very little room to manoeuvre — and the ratings agencies will be watching very closely
New kids boom on the blockchain
Funds are eager to flood into new tech ventures, but the stakes are very high
Reports erode faith in Resilient
Its share price has plummeted and investors are waiting for the results of an investigation
Sars gets wise to prophet taking
The vast sums of money preachers rake in have drawn the attention of the revenue service
FRIDAY
In search of real connections amid all the noise
“I usually fall asleep watching something on YouTube. One night iwas clips of an Oprah episode in which she spent a couple of days interviewing Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn. I was transfixedâ€
On our Lists the week: Louisa Mvemve, Barbara Boswell and Made in America
“Right now, I’m four chapters deep. I’m right in the middle of the 1985 State of Emergency in Cape Town — in a house with a 14-year-old Grace, her beautiful, distant mother and her abusive father — as she watches her parents’ love turn into habitual domestic violenceâ€
Mythology in the age of sci-fi
Local myths, born of violence, can be subverted to reflect the new conditions of the black cultural imagination
A superhero worth the wait
Black Panther might depict a fantasy of the continent but its contribution to geekdom remains important.
A soundtrack with its eye on the score
Coming of age in the 1990s, an age when Hollywood and hip-hop were newly locked in holy matrimony, a fair share of our music listening was made up of motion picture soundtracks.
Kendrick’s ‘All the Stars’ in appropriation scandal
The appropriation of visual artist Lina Iris Viktor’s work in the video to Black Panther soundtrack song ‘All The Stars’ has become an international scandal following the publication of a New York Times article in which she says she declined participation in the film project due to unfavourable financial and artistic terms.
The fine art of domesticating a revolution
Cape Town, a parched city of rain worshippers and opposition contrarians, has in the past few years been refashioning itself as an art destination. New museums and art institutions have opened new spaces, among them the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, A4 Arts Foundation and the Maitland Institute.
‘From No Fixed Place’, a space appears
If we purposefully make space for any group that has been prevented from participation and representation — pushed to the margins, or erased altogether from culturally-validated forms of public self-representation — we have to speak about why such extraordinary efforts are necessary. Inevitably, there will be those who do not believe that historical erasures exist.
Manstrology for the patriarchy
As your dominance begins to crumble, here’s a helpful guide from the former powerless to your only guiding light — the stars
COMMENT & ANALYSIS
Jacob Zuma: Made in Luthuli House
Cut the BS: The ANC sculpted its now-discarded presidential toy in its own, highly flawed image
EDITORIAL: Here’s what you did wrong, Jacob Zuma
In the course of his detailed self-exculpation (in procedural terms) this week, just ahead of his actual resignation, former president Jacob Zuma asked repeatedly: “What have I done wrong?†He said nobody in the ANC had been able to tell him what exactly his sins were. Now he may well have a point here: Why has the ANC not been able to enunciate all Zuma’s sins?
Letters to the editor
Our readers write in about how Caron van Zeil’s desire to restore Table Mountain’s Camissa spring is good from a historical perspective but it won’t solve Cape Town’s water crisis, and how the ANC has paralysed South Africa.
Bliss was it in the dawn to be alive
The final nightmare leading up to the post-Zuma era is over and the sun is shining
ANC faces a learning moment, but will it listen this time?
South African political history might one day record that the fate of modern-day ANC presidents owes many parallels with the story of BuendÃa.
Private interests bedevil ANC’s ‘new dawn’
Social justice must be Cyril Ramaphosa’s focus, resisting the corrupting influence of big business
Gordhan could be Cyril’s clean-up man
The new president has tough decisions to make but Sisulu or Pandor are a shoo-in for his deputy
Campaigning journalist was a ‘mensch’
Eddie Koch was a relentlessly determined reporter and the people he wrote about mattered
If we keep our eye on the ball, we can stop malaria
David Beckham writes about the first day he got involved to fight one of the world’s oldest diseases.
When tit-for-tat is self-defeating
Game theory is the study of working out, mathematically, what strategies to use in competitive situations. One of the simplest and most effective is called tit-for-tat.
Dear Cyril, here are my conditions
Now that the deal is done, we can reveal some of the negotiating positions taken by the former president during the Zexit process.
Prepare for the time of the robots
A future artificial intelligence-assisted economy means education must get with the program
SPORT
The enigma of Virat Kohli
India’s captain is set on leading his own terms, no matter what his haters have to say
Froome rides under a cloud
The four-time Tour de France winner was given a warm welcome in Spain despite doping claims
TV deals burn Premier League
The price paid per game by broadcasters has dropped by a cool million euros
