It seemed perfectly scripted if one had wanted to embarrass the settlers: a peaceful walk to the Tomb of the Patriarchs that gets disrupted by armed zealots and the unjustifiable arrest of peace activists, all done in the presence of a host of photographers. Except that our intention in visiting Hebron was simply to observe […]
Jonathan Berger
Jonathan Berger is a lawyer by training and a troublemaker by profession.
Posted inNews/Politics
Next week in (East) Jerusalem
My most recent memory of Jerusalem stretches back more than 20 years. I had just spent a year studying in Israel — first Hebrew in Jerusalem and then architecture in Haifa — and had decided to return home to Johannesburg. I was visiting friends at the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Blowing up the bridges
Like a defeated army in retreat, our minister of magic seems intent on leaving behind nothing but ruins for her successor. In what appears to be a frenetic dash to the finish line, the final stage of her marathon of misconduct, Dr Beet and her department are churning out a flurry of ill-conceived regulations and […]
Posted inGeneral
Manto-style madness from Mpumalanga
Whoever said that the wheels of justice grind slowly must have had Dr Malcolm Naude in mind. Almost seven years ago, he was dismissed from Nelspruit’s Rob Ferreira Hospital. At the time, government would not provide post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) — a course of antiretroviral (ARV) medicines to reduce the risk of infection following exposure to […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Apologists, ideologues and their lies
I’m really tired of drug company apologists. Take Thompson Ayodele, for example, the executive director of the conservative “think tank” Initiative for Public Policy Analysis. In a recent op–ed piece published in the Mail & Guardian, he trotted out old, tired and discredited arguments in support of uniform high levels of patent protection for medicines. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
More Manto than Manto
It’s really hard to take anything Peggy Nkonyeni says seriously. As MEC for Health in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), home to about one in four people living with HIV in South Africa and the epicentre of the global extensively drug resistant (XDR) TB epidemic, Nkonyeni is the epitome of arrogance, incompetence and malevolence. Every time she opens […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Hillary and the happy ending
It’s time to come clean. Against my better judgment, I think I may have had a soft spot for Hillary. Just a few weeks ago, I dreamt that the two of us were walking hand–in–hand. She was unusually charming. I was feeling guilty for not supporting her bid to become America’s next top commander. And […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Letter about Lhasa
I remember a time not so long ago when one could pick up T-shirts in the markets of cities in India and Nepal embossed with a very colourful flag and the words “Free Tibet”. The markets are still there, as is the clothing and the flags, but the word “free” seems largely to have been […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Tired of being tired
It was a Friday afternoon in Manesar – about an hour southwest of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport – and I was filled with dread at the thought of another two days of conferencing. It was day one of a “Global South Dialogue” on access to essential medicines, one of my areas of expertise, and […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Denying the denial
Ours is not a nation in denial. Sure, much has been said — and denied — about the president’s views on HIV and its causal link to Aids. Comparable stuff has been written about his views, and those of the Cabinet collective, on crime, corruption, energy and Zimbabwe. And until very recently, I subscribed to […]
Posted inGeneral
The Ministry of Magic School of Falsification
There’s a fantastic moment towards the end of The Crying Game when Jaye Davidson’s character recounts the story of a scorpion hitching a ride across a river on the back of a frog. Half way across, the scorpion stings the frog. When asked why, she simply replies: “It’s in my nature!” Earlier, when reading through […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Rights, wrongs and regulation
It hurts to say this, but I agree with the health minister. Like her, I believe that something needs to be done to address private hospitals’ proposed tariff increases. But the problem, which the minister has yet to admit, is that she appears to have no express statutory power to act. Like the problem of […]