`justice’ Tangeni Amupadhi Police officers are apparently turning to vigilantism because of growing disillusionment with the criminal justice system, says a research commissioned by the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD). In an incident earlier this year, Eastern Cape policemen shot dead four “fleeing robbers” in Umtata after they allegedly held up a Pep Stores branch and […]
offs Mukoni T Ratshitanga More than 200 Northern Province pensioners have taken court action against the provincial government’s decision to freeze pension and disability grants to 92 000 people. Court papers served this week on the province’s MEC for Health and Welfare, Hunadi Mateme, say the freeze should be invalidated on the grounds that it […]
Neil Manthorp in Amsterdam Cricket It is funny that we call ourselves a sports-crazy nation. There has never been a sports event in South Africa that has commanded, or even demanded, that the whole population sits up and takes notice. The Rugby World Cup final is an over- used example of when this was supposed […]
The taxpayer footed the bill for the 177 IFP participants in the Shell House inquest, writes Mungo Soggot The Legal Aid Board paid almost R10- million for the Inkatha Freedom Party’s legal representation at the Shell House inquest last year – as much as the board’s annual allowance to university legal aid clinics. The IFP […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby If God had meant man to live in England, he’d have given him gills. That line kept recurring in my thoughts during two trips to the Cape last week. On Saturday Clive Woodward’s prayers were answered as the heavens opened and soft, suppressing rain fell on his England team at Newlands. On […]
Chris McGreal Many will remember Chief Moshood Abiola as a political martyr denied presidential power, even though he came to prominence as an opportunist businessman, prepared to do deals with Nigeria’s soldiers until the very end. In the days before he died, Abiola had been ready to forsake his presidential claims, according to the various […]
Belinda Beresford The power of compounding interest is on your side when you make extra payments on your bond. Say you have a R150 000, 20-year bond at 22% interest with Standard Bank. The total cost – capital and interest – of the bond would be R668 542, and the monthly repayment would be R2 […]
Howard Barrell: OVER A BARREL There are, I’m sure, many reasons to admire communists. One which dwarfs all others, though, is their talent for rationalisation. Their ability to explain away past failures in such a way as to be able to retain a set of ill-fitting core beliefs is quite remarkable. The origin of this […]
Graham Farmelo Only the most foolhardy person would try to predict the future of the World Wide Web, but that didn’t stop its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, from trying some crystal-ball gazing last week. During Internet, Web, What Next?, a conference at the Cern atom-smasher laboratory in Geneva, Berners-Lee and others speculated on what they hoped […]
Lauren Shantall To reach Heart of Darkness, one must embark on a symbolic journey into the bowels of the hulking 1820 Settlers Monument. There, one will confront an Africa of the past – that mythical place of the European imagination – and the multi-dimensional Africa of the present day. Finally, one encounters the minds of […]