Friday night Marianne Thamm Friday nights in the city are rather predictable. I’ve never really liked them. Most of us are generally too tired from the week’s toil to really let rip. There’s nothing brave about going out on a Friday night. Friday nights are for the faint- hearted. But Monday nights are another thing. […]

Mungo Soggot Police have raided Cape empowerment group Brimstone’s pharmaceutical arm for the second time this year, seizing a batch of stolen antibiotics. The swoop on Monday follows a high profile raid on the company in May, in which the narcotics squad confiscated stolen painkillers as well as assorted drugs allegedly destined for the state […]

Marianne Merten Police investigators probing People against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) have quietly arrested at least six members of the group in the past 10 days without the usual “breakthrough” headlines that backfired on detectives in the past. This comes as Cape Town courts refuse bail to those facing charges ranging from possessing pipebombs and […]

A few weeks ago I attended a workshop by the law commission on its draft Administrative Justice Bill. The combination of the Open Democracy Act and this Bill will be crucial legislative instruments in ensuring open, honest democracy. In the words of the Mpumalanga political lexicon, these laws will make it hard for government to […]

There is something uncomfortably familiar about what has become known as the Tuli elephant scandal and it is not just the tradition of cruelty by man to dumb animals. It lies in the apparent impunity enjoyed by some individuals who are engaged in activities which, if not criminal, are anathema to the rest of society. […]

Niki Moore President Thabo Mbeki, Swaziland’s King Mswati III and Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano have given the Lubombo spatial development initiative (SDI) a shot in the arm, which it is hoped will help raise R1- billion for development projects. The three heads of state signed a protocol at the Southern African Economic Summit in Durban […]

Tangeni Amupadhi IN CONFLICT by Anthony Feinstein (David Philip) In Conflict is one man’s account of how he compromised his own beliefs to fight in defence of apartheid. Anthony Feinstein put off national service in the then South African Defence Force (SADF) by going straight from school to university, where he became increasingly convinced that […]

Heather Hogan Potchefstroom police have launched an intensive search for missing Witrand hospital patient John Walgenbach. This is the 10th time Walgenbach has escaped from the dismal institution. Walgenbach (43) – who has the mental capacity of a five-year-old – escaped from Witrand on Friday, June 18. Many other patients walk out of the institution […]

Shaun de Waal Art movie of the week South African writer Damon Galgut’s novel, on which Belgian director Marion Hnsel’s film The Quarry is based, is a spare, hauntingly oblique work. The main character is known simply as ”the man”: as the film begins, he is on the run, but why, and from what, we […]