*Read MSF’s latest report: No time to quit: HIV/Aids treatment gap widening in Africa.
News/Politics
Posted inNews/Politics
Give Beast a bloody passport!
I like rugby, no scratch that, I love rugby. I know football is meant to be our thing at the moment, but I really do love rugby. And I love Tendai Mtawarira. If I could adopt him as my brother, I would. I’m not too sure if adoption works that way, maybe I’d need to […]
Posted inNews/Politics, Sport
Nobody calls it quits at half-time!
Truly speaking, the little I know about morality, I learnt it on football pitches. Albert Camus, French philosopher and Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature. In four days’ time the sound of a whistle and crisp thud of a boot on a football will herald a month when the world’s eyes are fixed on South Africa. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Beleaguered Juju reaches out to ANC
African National Congress Youth League President Julius Malema has warned South African President Jacob Zuma that the ANCYL has been infiltrated and that his comrades have started turning against him. He says the youth league conferences are being split and points to events in the Limpopo and the Eastern Cape as evidence of the insurrection. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Classrooms in South Africa are failing our children
By Athambile Masola Recently, in preparation for my Masters thesis, I have been observing Grade 1 classes in Grahamstown schools. This has helped me get a feel for the reality of classroom conditions in the impoverished schools in the town, along with the concerns of teachers. The surrounding context of these schools is not the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Pulling the wool over tourists’ eyes
Robust democracies don’t exist because there is no conflict. They exist because they have mechanisms for channelling conflict in ways that relieve pressure.
Posted inNews/Politics
Zuma family needs to tackle MaNtuli scandal head-on
Reports earlier this week claim that President Jacob Zuma’s second wife, Nompumelelo Ntuli Zuma, popularly known as MaNtuli, has been accused of having an affair with her bodyguard. In addition that members of Zuma’s family wrote a letter to Ilanga, a Zulu language newspaper, setting out details of the affair including allegations that the bodyguard, […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Gun control — clutching at straws
As I labour away at my keyboard I can hear excited Englishmen on Sky News babbling on in the background about a much-needed revamp of British gun laws. Good! If the law is changed so as to make guns more accessible to the ordinary Englishman the authorities could in future warn him about the eruptions […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Mis-leaders: Understanding homophobia in Africa
We give too much power to our leaders in Africa. We invest them with god-like status and then feel disappointed when they deliberately disregard the public good, or stray from the path we hoped we’d be on. Worse though is the fact that we influence who our leaders are, so African leaders’ (in)action is a […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Vavi the bonfire to Malema’s vanity?
Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, on Tuesday warned of the possibility of a split in the tripartite alliance if the ANC were to proceed with disciplinary charges. Vavi, who is an ordinary member of the ANC as well, told the SABC that this has the potential of breaking […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Who’s afraid of the big, bad moffie?
What is it about homosexuality that inspires such hatred in others — and most frequently on the part of men? I mean often the degree of hatred, and the violence it often inspires, seems completely out of proportion to whatever threat homosexuality seemingly poses. Recent events in Malawi are a case in point, though such […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Were things really better under apartheid?
See, this is why I don’t appreciate it when these foreign johns comment on the state of South Africa. They’re bound to get it wrong. The worst thing about the World Cup is the masses of scribes, descending onto our little wedge of turf like carrion birds onto the carcass of a giraffe, to prod, […]