Station commissioner of Umbilo police station, Ian McCall, has targeted Dalton hostel as a major source of crime in the city Paul Kirk The rats scampered away with a pride of feral cats in hot pursuit as the police stormed the municipal beer hall. Adjacent to Durban’s notorious Dalton hostel, parts of the hall have […]

Thuli Nhlapo Taiwan Buddhist Compassion Relief, a charity organisation, has come to the rescue of scores of Alexandra residents who have been homeless since the February floods while the government dallies over how to spend R557- million set aside for flood relief. The flood victims have been living in squalid conditions in a transit camp, […]

Andy Capostagno RUGBY Nick Mallett can be thankful for one thing this week, and that is that the Springboks’ opponents on Saturday are the All Blacks. If there is one team that South African players need no motivation for it is the men from New Zealand. There are several other things the Springbok coach has […]

Kathryn Smith WAYNE BARKER: ARTIST’S MONOGRAPH by Charl Blignaut (Chalkham Hill Press) Those familiar with “cutting edge” contemporary art, or the suburb of Troyeville, need no introduction to Wayne Barker. But for those who do, or who know him simply as a louche, conscientious objector-artist and one-time gallery owner who bears more than a passing […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality has called for a commission of inquiry to probe allegations of illegal sex- change operations, medical torture and chemical castration performed by the South African Defence Force (SADF) on gay men and lesbians before 1994. The coalition, whose call for an inquiry is […]

Paul Kirk A Gauteng attorney has mysteriously vanished with tens of millions of rands he was supposedly helping to spirit out of the country. Johannesburg-based attorney Spyrodon Akritides is being investigated by police and the South African Reserve Bank on suspicion of having illegally ferreted up to R300-million out of the country, using fraudulent documentation. […]

Barry Streek Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza wants provincial land MECs to consider taking advice from the Zimbabwean government on farming policy. Didiza convened a workshop of provincial MECs this week to discuss an offer of support from her Zimbabwean counterpart to help South Africans understand what is involved in helping to […]

Khadija Magardie The South African Law Commission has proposed a radi-cal shake-up of customary laws of inheritance to bring them in line with the Bill of Rights. The Draft Bill for the Amendment of the Customary Law of Succession proposes that women, under-age heirs and illegitimate children be allowed to inherit from a relative who […]

Ted Leggett In yet another move limiting the flow of information between the police and the public, Commissioner Jackie Selebi has announced a moratorium on the release of certain crime statistics and threatened to fire those police members who communicate with the media. While he initially denied the existence of a moratorium, Selebi now asserts […]

With crime being South Africa’s most pressing problem, corruption within the police raises serious concern Piers Pigou At a recent conference in Cape Town on crime and human rights, the former South African ambassador to The Netherlands, Carl Niehaus, pointed out that the issue of dealing with incarcerated juveniles had not moved forward significantly since […]