Occult crime unit is offensive to common sense and morality

Decades after its formation, the Occult-Related Crime Unit (ORCU, founded by Kobus ā€œDonkerā€ Jonker in 1992) continues to waste public resources, misdirect police attention, and stigmatise young people who are by and large more misunderstood than malignant.

Jacques Rousseau

Opinion | 13 November 2013

SJC launches 6th Irene Grootboom Dialogue Series

The Khayelitsha based Social Justice Coalition launched the 6th Irene Grootboom Dialogue Series last night with a seminar on the History of Insecurity in South Africa.

Sibusiso Tshabalala

News | 13 November 2013

Blowing fortunes on weddings

Weddings today have become more about flaunting status and wealth than tying the knot. Couples are left with financial debt and worse.

Nwabisa Pondoyi

News | 13 November 2013

Economic apartheid and the builders of the world city

Christmas is clearly coming. The store decorations are in place and chocolate Santas jostle on the shelves with strings of lights on ornamental trees while bins of festive season toffees and biscuit specials vie to keep the tills ringing.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 12 November 2013

A man who is not a man

It is not every day that a book like A man who is not a man comes along. Thando Mgqolozana's debut novel is a courageous book. It is a sensitive but merciless interrogation of the Xhosa custom of male circumcision today. What happens to the boys--emotionally, spiritually and socially--when things go wrong, the fault of which is not of their own making?

Thando Mgqolozana

News | 12 November 2013

EFF Cerberus

News | 6 November 2013

Abalimi Bezekhaya

News | 6 November 2013

The week in political activism

This week we have reports from Corruption Watch, the Social Justice Coalition, the International Organisation for Migration and the Aids Rights Alliance for Southern Africa.

Delphine Pedeboy

News | 6 November 2013

A changed world requires ditching dogma

Trade unions the world over are embattled and apparently finding difficulty adapting to the changed circumstances of this century. To varying degrees they react to challenges in the manner of decades past, without apparently realising the potential they have to influence the way forward in what is a changed world.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 6 November 2013

Genetically modified foods: let the science speak

Genetically modified food has become a highly politicised, emotional issue with heated arguments and accusations between those for and against their use.

Kerry Gordon

Opinion | 6 November 2013

Was South Africa sold out in 1994?

Ronnie Kasrils argued in the Guardian in June that the ANC in 1994 accepted a "devil's pact ... " that tied South Africa's economy "to the neoliberal global formula and market fundamentalism ...". Here Rob Petersen explains why he thinks Kasrils is mistaken. This is the text of a speech given at an Equal Education event on 31 October.

Rob Petersen

Opinion | 6 November 2013

Problems with Home Affairs program to make it easier for Zimbabweans to work

In 2010, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) formulated an easier and quicker way for Zimbabweans to obtain their work permits and stay in the country legally. But it has not gone smoothly.

Nwabisa Pondoyi

News | 6 November 2013

Angolan who grew up in SA risks being sent back

Jesus Espirito Do Santos has lived in South Africa since he was three. He is at risk of being sent back to Angola where he was born. Yet he only speaks English and Afrikaans and canā€™t speak Portuguese.

Tariro Washinyira

News | 5 November 2013

Over R1 billion in fund - yet apartheid victims still await compensation

The Presidentā€™s Fund was established in 2003 under President Thabo Mbeki to compensate apartheid victims. It has accumulated over a billion rands. Nevertheless, many apartheid victims who were identified by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to receive compensation from this fund, have still received nothing. Some have died waiting.

Mary-Anne Gontsana

News | 5 November 2013

Planet Savage: an extract from Tuelo Gabonewe’s book

Tuelo Gabonewe's is an exciting, new young voice in South African literature. His first novel, Planet Savage, is narrated by Leungo, a nine-year old with an unusual, often sacrosanct, outlook on life.

Tuelo Gabonewe

News | 4 November 2013

Ambrosini is wrong about cancer

Receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis in your early 50s is frightening. It is difficult to imagine what Mario Ambrosini is going through. That he wishes to beat cancer and that he is disappointed with medical science because it offers him so little hope is entirely understandable.

Nathan Geffen, GroundUp Editor

Opinion | 4 November 2013