Niren Tolsi
Niren Tolsi is a freelance journalist whose interests include social justice, citizen mobilisation and state violence, protest, the Constitution and Constitutional Court, football and Test cricket.
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/ 4 May 2006

Born free

What do South Africa’s ”born frees” – who came into the world after the death of apartheid, or were too young to remember it – know about their country’s traumatic past? Have our children been changed by 12 years of democracy?

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/ 21 April 2006

Durban hit by ‘sugars’ rush

Chatsworth, Durban, lunchtime: 16-year-old Colin Pillay staggers out of an alleged drug-dealer’s semi-detached council home, oblivious. An hour earlier, Pillay and his mother had turned up at the Chatsworth Youth Centre seeking a prescription for Subutex (buprenorphine, a schedule six drug) to combat his three-and-a-half-year "sugars" addiction.

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/ 6 April 2006

Nkandla: Our fortunes are tied to Msholozi

That Nkandla is a depressed area where the people feel economically and politically marginalised is tangible. Nkandla town’s streets are filled with young people with nothing to do and any line of questioning regarding Jacob Zuma inevitably ends with the desperate hope that the situation in the area would improve if he were to become president.

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/ 27 May 2000

ONIBALL, PUTT BACK IN BUSINESS

ONE of the most potent halfback combinations of the 90’s may be back in business when the Natal Sharks take on Newport at Kings Park on Saturday. Henry Honiball and Kevin Putt may be reunited as the halfback pair for the Sharks in the Gary Teichmann Tribute match. Flyhalf Honiball is a definite starter, while […]

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/ 25 June 1999

The second coming?

‘Long ago, in a far, far galaxy …’ So began a 1977 film that spawned a hundred imitators, billions of dollars in profits, two sequels and, now, the first of three planned prequels. What is it about George Lucas’s Star Wars films that has so captured the imagination? By Mark Lawson In 1977, a promising […]

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/ 23 October 1998

A little bit of black magic

Andrew Worsdale : Movie of the week If, like myself and many others, you are tired of African-American films that are full of violence, drugs and depressing representations of the black community, you’ll take a shine to Eve’s Bayou. The story revolves around a 10-year-old girl who seems to have the perfect family: a father […]

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/ 23 August 1996

Victims raped by the system

Being raped is just the beginning of the ordeal for thousands of South African women, writes Angella Johnson IT was a bitterly cold evening when Gladys Masai wrapped up in her winter coat and set off to visit her aunt in Brits. The journey from Pretoria should have taken about an hour and she was […]