Author name: Phakamisa Mayaba

Solidariteit’s fresh welcome for Trumpless G20

US President Donald Trump’s decision to snub the G20 summit later this month has resulted in something that oscilates between panic and a lackadaisical ‘it’s their loss’ from President Cyril Ramaphosa. Although it came as little surprise, it still would’ve been grating for the ‘leader of the free world’ to start taking broadsides and practically …

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Of budding township artists and an unlikely poet

That the turnout was paltry did little to dent Unathi Asiya’s goal of someday introducing a solid arts programme to the youth of Colesberg’s Kuyasa Township this past Saturday afternoon. Ideally, not the most promising day because this is when the community bury their dead or honour the ancestors. The Seventh Day Adventists strictly reserve …

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Francesca Albanese: the woman who will not shut up

More than inviting UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese to deliver the 23rd annual Nelson Mandela Lecture, it seems organisers at the former stateman’s Foundation let slip a veiled message for the world: we will do what few countries are not stupid enough to do. The term ‘Palestinian’ …

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ANC “Terror” in the age of inquests and commissions

As the inquest into the gruesome murders of Fort Calata, Matthew Goniwe, Sicelo Mhlauli and Sparrow Mkhonto – collectively known as The Cradock Four – continues, lobby group Afriforum a week or so ago were calling on the Khampepe commission of inquiry ‘into the delay in investigating and prosecuting apartheid-era crimes to also include “terror” …

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When they won’t talk, check out their social media

On their Facebook page on 19 September, Colesberg’s Umsobomvu Municipality handed over eight RDP houses to beneficiaries, igniting an immediate backlash. The Ou Boks project, initially tauted as a pioneering Thabo Mbeki presidential project in 2006 was aimed at relocating some beneficiaries from Ou Boks – the town’s oldest township – so as to make …

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