Jonathan Miller reports on how the Internet has become a seething mass of fraud and disinformation Last month, media around the world picked up on the story that a teenage couple in the United States were preparing to lose their virginity live on the Internet. A special website had even been established to broadcast this […]
Zwelithini-ka Mvelase Frankly, if South Africans respected and preserved what’s theirs, with as much jealousy as Americans do, there would be enough greats to fill volumes. Whether those names were crooks or saints, wouldn’t matter a dime. This flits past my mind as I sit sipping gin with die ouens and – boom! – we […]
As one of South Africa’s major outsider artists faces the loss of his unique Clarens homestead, Matthew Krouse and Alex Dodd journey to the source of a town’s painful conflict A Kafkaesque man in a black suit and tie flees across a surreal red landscape populated by creatures that could come from land or sea, […]
Bobby Peek The survival of the constitutional right to a healthy environment depends on the outcome of an unprecedented battle raging through almost every ministry and department of the government. The executive branch is debating the fate of the draft National Environmental Management Bill. Will the Bill vindicate the constitutional right to “an environment that […]
Justin Arenstein The Mpumalanga government has ordered a new investigation into the Motheo housing scandal after it expressed concern at the lack of financial controls in the national Department of Housing. Mpumalanga public accounts chair Hein Mentz said this week Parliament has been requested to address a perceived absence of checks and balances. Confirming that […]
The Internet feels to many of its more spiritually-minded proponents like a hardwiring of human consciousness. If and when poor people and developing nations get access to these technologies, we will all have the means, at least electronically, to access one another’s information, opinions, and feelings. Although it will certainly occur more subtly than in […]
Howard W French Rebel forces in the Democractic Republic of Congo consolidated their hold on Wednesday on much of the eastern regions of the country, and the names of civilian leaders who might replace the embattled President Laurent-Dsir Kabila if the uprising succeeds began to circulate for the first time. In the clearest indication so […]
Howard Barrell Over a Barrel If the Almighty and I were acquainted – which, sadly, we are not – I would, I am sure, reserve most of my prayers for the inadequacies of my own life. But I know, after just three weeks based in Parliament, that I would regularly be moved to seek heavenly […]
Suzanne Wilton and Sasha Nagy Canadian fugitive Patrick Steven Ryan’s ties to extreme right-wing groups in South Africa have become part of a Calgary police investigation into his role in the violent armed robbery of an armoured car last March. Ryan, whose connections to white- supremacist groups are also part of the investigation, visited South […]
at bay Ferial Haffajee It is a peaceful Saturday afternoon at a women’s shelter in the inner city in Johannesburg. Two women sit in the lounge and chat to a friend who is ironing. There is a calm about the place – it is here that battered women find refuge from abusive relationships and forge […]