Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The Northern Province Department of Health has challenged a group of white doctors to prove that their application to start a new private hospital is not racially motivated. The challenge comes amid simmering racial tension in the province’s state hospitals, with some white patients refusing to be treated by black hospital […]
Jubie Matlou There could not have been a better place than The Netherlands, with its intricate system of dykes and canals to protect the country from floods, to host the Second World Water Security Forum this week. The conference was not meant to be an ambitious exercise to get 4E000 delegates to find consensus, according […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni It could be bubbles in the paint on the wall, or lights that won’t go off. When you lie awake at night and wonder what that strange scratching sound is, it might be a good idea to call a pest control company in the morning. Termites are in town once again […]
The South African political landscape has changed dramatically in the six years since the first democratic elections, writes Howard Barrell Former apartheid salesman Pik Botha announces he wants to join the African National Congress. Thirty Afrikaner businessmen, many once funders of the apartheid National Party, cosy up to Thabo Mbeki by endorsing his presidency. And […]
The people of the Karoo may soon find themselves even more isolated Lynda Gilfillan Karoo dorps – Burgersdorp, Jansenville, Murraysburg – may seem like one-horse towns to tourists speeding past the road markers on the N1, but a glance at a local weekly newspaper reveals deep undercurrents of tragedy and frivolity, politics, life and death. […]
Vikram Dodd November 1978 In the largest cult-inspired mass suicide of recent times, 914 followers of the Reverend Jim Jones’s People’s Temple died at Jonestown, Guyana. Most drank a grape punch that was laced with cyanide. Those who refused to drink it were shot. A sign over Jones’s altar read: “Those who forget the past […]
Steve Outing In the days of yore (pre-Internet, that is), news media and corporations had clearly defined boundaries. Magazines and newspapers gave readers news and objective information. Companies tried to sell goods and services, and placed ads in magazines, newspapers and on TV as a way to sell more. Ah, life was simple then. The […]
As floods continue to wreak havoc across Southern Africa, a look at the conservation of water resources may seem irrelevant, but delegates at an international water conference took a longer-term view Jubie Matlou in The Hague, The Netherlands A draft blueprint for fair and equal access to the Inkomati River by South Africa, Swaziland and […]
Nawaal Deane On Friday morning Robert Mugabe bashers will have the rare opportunity to squirt diesel in his face or throw darts at him. All they will have to do is tune into a new youth website, www.gal.co.za, where Mugabe’s face will be bouncing around on screen. The player who scores the most hits in […]
Paul Kirk Chris MacAdam, the head of KwaZulu- Natal’s investigating directorate (organised crime and public safety), is facing a multimillion-rand lawsuit from soldiers who claim he wrongly arrested them for a massacre that followed the assassination of Sifiso Nkabinde. Within hours of Nkabinde being gunned down in Richmond, a family of 11 African National Congress […]