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/ 12 October 2007
The trail began when a dog was found wandering around Shayamoya township outside Umzinto on KwaZulu-Natal’s south coast in early September. It had the head of a woman clamped in its jaws. This has led to the gruesome discovery of the decomposing bodies of nine young women and the exhumation of a tenth in Majola in the Eastern Cape.
With the reputation of a quietly spoken priest dedicated to the upliftment of the marginalised, Thabo Makgoba, the newly elected Archbishop of Cape Town and Metropolitan of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, is expected to be as effective, but much less high-profile, than his predecessors.
So frenzied was the attack on the authorities that professional government-bashers from Cosatu or the DA would have been cowed into inadequate blushes. And the occasion seemed an unlikely one for such insurrectionary talk — National Heritage Council public hearings at the Hilton hotel in Durban recently, writes Niren Tolsi.
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/ 28 September 2007
With the ANC’s elective conference in Polokwane two months away, ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma’s lieutenants in KwaZulu-Natal are ensuring that procedural "hiccups" in the nomination process at branch level will not hinder his final push towards the presidency. This emerged from a provincial executive committee meeting held recently.
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/ 20 September 2007
An oppressive pall hangs over the Motala Heights informal settlement in Pinetown near Durban. It comes not from the dump site nearby the wood-and-iron houses nor from sewage, but rather from the clampdown on basic civil liberties — the freedom of movement and political association.
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/ 20 September 2007
A small-town murder is bound to leave residents continuously looking over their shoulders. In the northern KwaZulu-Natal town of Dundee — population 25 000 — the condition has been exacerbated by the initial arrest of the Endumeni municipality’s first citizen, her sibling and her boyfriend in connection with the murder of SACP/ANC activist Grishen Bujram in June this year.
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/ 14 September 2007
News flash: There is nothing arousing about the sight of 36 000 bare-breasted, barely clothed virgins. Blame it on the relentless sun, or on the dervish wind blasting everything with red dust, or perhaps the litany of speeches which defiantly positioned Zulu culture in direct conflict with the Constitution.
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/ 7 September 2007
Niren Tolsi speaks to writer and culture producer Peter Machen about his new book on Durban.
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/ 6 September 2007
”Regardless of the BEE types’ penchant for emaciated white girls whose figures might be attributed to the sort of galloping bulimia offensive to any self-respecting peasant living below the bread line, it is time to ensure transformation occurs at all levels of society. Including the air-heads,” writes Niren Tolsi.
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/ 3 September 2007
”You saw Tina*? She got fucked up here this morning: Candice* banged [hit] her and left her. You saw her?” asks Karen*, a teen prostitute, as her friend Denise* approaches. Even at midday on a Wednesday the space on the kerb of Silverglen Drive near the Sol Namara Hotel in Chatsworth appears to be at a premium.