JULIA Mashele and her co-accused Johannes Makhanye were acquited and discharged on 32 counts ranking from theft to kidnapping and murder in the Pretoria regional court on Friday morning. Mashele and Makhanye, who were alleged to have been involved in organised crime in the Soshanguve area north of Pretoria, hugged each other as the public […]
Ben Cousins SECOND LOOK Zimbabwean-style land invasions are likely in South Africa in the future unless politicians begin to deal decisively with the highly emotive issue of unequal and racially skewed land distribution. This is a real prospect, despite the great differences between the political economies of the two countries. As in Zimbabwe, local invasions […]
Steven Friedman WORM’S EYE VIEW We can learn from events across our borders: but do we? An aspect of Zimbabwe’s trauma which has received less notice than it should is what it tells us about our own hang-ups. If citizens’ responses in radio phone- ins or letters to the press are a guide, that of […]
Thebe Mabanga IN YOUR EAR The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) is an interesting figure in South African broadcasting. It was established in 1993 to regulate the broadcasting industry and has made considerable, but sometimes jittery, strides in fulfilling its duties. One of its successes is the deregulation of the airwaves, with radio now reaching an […]
Howard Barrell President Thabo Mbeki said this week that the crisis in Zimbabwe was the result of a failure to redistribute land in the country – rather than a violent manipulation of a grievance for electoral purposes by Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe. In an address to the nation on Thursday night, Mbeki also rejected calls […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Senior members of South Africa’s biggest vigilante group, Mapogo a Matamaga, want the notorious organisation to abandon its hallmark policy of viciously sjamboking suspected criminals. The Mapogo members have accused its controversial president, Monhle Magolego, an enthusiastic proponent of corporal punishment, of behaving like a dictator. They say the unlawful beating […]
ZIMBABWE’s foreign payment arrears have climbed to at least $350-million dollars, raising the prospect of a default on its external debt and further fuel shortages, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. It said the deficit relates to payments for goods already dispatched to Zimbabwe and for orders not yet sent. Citing bankers it added that […]
A legal battle over a genetically modified rodent is putting the lucrative mutant mouse industry under the microscope James Meek In October a jury in San Francisco will make a decision in one of the new millennium’s most bizarre and complex court cases. Teams of elite lawyers will have spent weeks studying and arguing over […]
Mary Dover Picture the scene: you’ve just arrived at your four-star holiday hotel to find the paint peeling off the walls, the room smelling dank and pubic hairs in the bath. Not quite what the brochure promised but what recourse do you have now that the star system is redundant? Most of us have grown […]
Jaspreet Kindra Two tribes near Louis Trichardt have been invading state-run bluegum plantations after failing to push through an official claim to the land. After their claim to their ancestral land – located atop the bluegum-covered Rivola mountain – fell on deaf years, the Shangaan and Venda-speaking communities inhabiting either side of the mountain decided […]