General

Something in me dies, a piece of me dies every time I attend the memorial service of a greatly misunderstood artist. It would seem that the event, which should place the life of the dearly departed into perspective, is an excuse to deny the role he played as an agent of change in this country. […]

According to the meetings schedule published on the Medicines Control Council’s (MCC) website, the council’s next meeting is to be held on Friday, April 17. A request was made to have the following open letter placed on the meeting’s agenda for its consideration. Although some aspects are technical, the gist of the letter should be […]

Submitted by Marius Redelinghuys “Stop Zuma!” two weeks before election day has become the epitome of the Democratic Alliance’s 2009 election campaign. However, the DA’s advertising campaign in various print media last week went further and loudly – in addition to the centrality of the anti-Zuma platform – dared to present to South Africans the […]

As if the electorate could be any more bewildered by current South African politics, the decision to drop all corruption charges against Jacob Zuma has turned ordinary South Africans into believers, converted sceptics into philosophers and motored immigration turnstiles into action. Just a week before the “most important election” and the electorate couldn’t be more […]

I am a great believer in interfaith dialogue, including “born-again atheists” and “mystical atheists”, and for coming to realise that all sacred scripture is a spiritual metaphor. If for example, we look at the scripture in the Christian gospel, where Jesus says: “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door […]

A bench of three Peruvian judges has convicted former president of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, of gross human rights violations. These were torture, kidnapping and enforced disappearances committed during the early 1990s. The Special Criminal Division of Peru’s Supreme Court concluded that Fujimori as president bore individual criminal responsibility in all three cases because he had […]

It’s true, the Armchaired One is throwing his not-so-insignificant weight around. Why, just the other day he left his usual spot in front of the telly and went to watch the real thing. In the heart of Chatsworth. Yebo. This was all in the name of curiosity, you see. Somehow, the Armchaired One even snaffled […]

“Money can’t buy me love”, the Beatles sang in their heyday. And, as Joan Copjec has remarked about the founding psychoanalytical concept, “foreclosure” (the fact that some “originary, irredeemable loss” structures our “reality”), something that capitalism’s “logic of gain” cannot tolerate, one could say that love, too, escapes capitalism’s attempts to invest in it, with […]

The following things seem pretty certain now — the ANC will emerge victorious from the elections and Jacob Zuma will become South Africa’s fourth post-apartheid president. The rest is detail. Whether Cope does anything, but dilate the eye of Sauron. Whether Helen lands the Western Cape. Whether hordes of municipalities choose delivery over the ANC’s […]

A quiet revolution is building in South Africa ahead of the 2010 World Cup. Stroke by stroke, note by note, thousands of singers, painters and other artists are plying their trade with a strong focus on the event. The KZN Gallery in Glenwood is currently hosting All Eyes in African, a magnificent exhibition of mosaics […]

In order to give you some indication of how seriously most countries take matters of national security look no further than the British head of anti-terror, Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick who quit in disgrace after arriving for a Downing Street meeting yesterday with top-secret files on a bomb plot under his arm. As he wandered […]