Daily Maverick
Haunted by Epstein horror
Traumatic memory is a tricky beast. It doesn’t unfold neatly in a clean sequence. It lives in the nervous system, triggered by a sound, a smell, a word, a fragment. Short. Sharp. Staccato. Juliette Bryant’s most visceral memory begins with one instant...
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South Africa is at a crossroads (again)
Will 2026 be the year we reverse the deal with the devil?
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The state of our beaches
As the summer months bring blue skies and soaring temperatures across the Northern and Western Cape, locals and tourists alike are flocking to the many picturesque beaches the coastline has to offer. Municipalities are taking steps to ensure public...
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GATVOL Minister, we are with the number of murders in SA
Lefa Moino (21) was murdered in Johannesburg in November. His mother, Sarha, has a message for the police minister: “I don’t know if the official crime stats mean anything at all to me. We see people die daily right where we live, and it’s not just...
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168 HOURS in 5 MINUTES
FRI NOVEMBER 21 Unicef warns that more than 417 million children in the world face severe deprivation. According to a report released yesterday, more than 19% of the world’s children live in extreme poverty. One in five children lives on less than $3...
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Cyril’s G20 MEGAPHONE
The headlines ahead of the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Johannesburg have been dominated by the US’S attacks on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s G20 priorities and even South Africa’s core agenda of solidarity, equality and sustainability – and its push for a...
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A century of Siya
Given the odds against him, Siya Kolisi should not have played one Test match, never mind 100. But on Saturday night, 8 November, in the hostile cauldron of the Stade de France, against a French team hell-bent on revenge, the Springbok captain will...
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How the world is being split in two over women’s rights
Ahighly organised and well-funded campaign to strip women of their rights is gaining global momentum. “Reject harmful sex education in South Africa!” reads the headline of a petition launched in August this year. “The South African Department of Basic...
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Police violence SHO TS UP
Former EC police commissioner Nomthetheleli Mene, who retired at the end of February.
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BAD blood and cocaine killings
Several celebrity murders and a R200million drug consignment stolen from a police building during a power cut now connect different parts of South Africa’s seismic law enforcement scandal. This week, suspended deputy national commissioner of crime...
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The battle to win Jozi heats up
Johannesburg, South Africa’s grand dame city, is tilting – and political heavyweights from Helen Zille to Herman Mashaba are lining up for the job everyone calls a poisoned chalice. Exclusive new data from the Ipsos Khayabus survey shows that Gauteng...
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Unearthing POLICING skulduggery
Calvin Rafadi recalls the last time he saw Tshwane entrepreneur Jerry Boshoga – it was several weeks, possibly months, before Boshoga was reported as having been kidnapped in Centurion. When Rafadi saw him, Boshoga was with Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala, who...
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Nowhere to run
‘Now this bomb has exploded in their faces, now they have nowhere to run – at the expense of my husband’s life.” These are the words of Nicolette Kinnear, the widow of senior detective Charl Kinnear, who was assassinated five years ago. She was...
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JOBS BLOODBATH
Right now, in an unassuming building at Durban harbour, crews haul in albacore and bluefin tuna destined for American tables. For decades, this “Cinderella industry,” as veteran trader Richard Kramer describes it, quietly sustained thousands of...
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science of HIATE The SPEECH
Forensic linguistics was used to prove that EFF leader Julius Malema was guilty of hate speech when he incited violence against a white man who was involved in a violent fight with EFF protesters in Brackenfell in 2020. The South African Human Rights...
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R7.2bn Could this be the game-changer SA education needs?
When Jan Mouton, son of Jannie Mouton and spokesperson for the family foundation, explained to Daily Maverick why they were offering R7.2-billion for Curro Holdings, he kept insisting on one word: donation. Not “buyout”, not “takeover”, not...
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Busting corruption one tip-off at a time
How citizen whistleblowers are helping Prof Koleka Mlisana and her team clean up the National Health Laboratory Service
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Giving up is not an option
Gift of the Givers founder and Eminent Persons Group (EPG) member Dr Imtiaz Sooliman says he is optimistic about the National Dialogue. He told Daily Maverick that although there was “lots of negativity and pessimism” about the proliferation of...
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D-DAY FOR Trump ’s 30 % TARIFFS and what it means for SA
South Africa is confronting the most critical moment in its fraught relations with the US, staring at exports worth almost $10-billion being exposed to stiff tariffs that risk making these goods uncompetitive. That is the estimated value of South...
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CR17 campaign linked to kingpin in Mkhwanazi scandal
He is the shadowy figure at the heart of explosive allegations made by Kwazulu-natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi – and in the past, he has aligned himself strongly with the politics of President Cyril Ramaphosa. Media reports from around...
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WE are the HOPE SA needs
Entle Mcasi “I would call for unity among GNU parties to prioritise the nation’s welfare over political differences,” said Entle Mcasi, a student at CPUT. “Act decisively against corruption in politics and policing. To combat crime, I’d strengthen...
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Mkhwanazi’s smoking guns
A ballistic report allegedly linking an AK-47 and a pistol to a Transnet corruption cover-up murder, and the shootings of high-profile public figures, add weight to the KZN police commissioner’s claims of a criminal octopus with tentacles reaching deep...
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Moms SCORE WIN against Hell Affairs
In a shocking case filed at the High Court in Cape Town, the Children’s Institute, representing 15 mothers and caregivers, has highlighted the administrative abuse that mothers face when trying to register the births of their babies when the child is...
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Irangate SHOWDOWN final
More than two decades since Iran issued its first private mobile network licence, a tangled web of geopolitics, bribery allegations and courtroom battles has landed squarely at the feet of South Africa’s Constitutional Court. First, some background....
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Two by Twos church workers who PREY on children
Asecretive fundamentalist Christian sect, widely known as the Two by Twos but also as the No-name Church, The Truth, or The Way, has been rocked by an international child sexual abuse and rape scandal. Because of the secretive nature of the sect, as...
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After 1 year of GNU where to?
When the government of national unity (GNU) was unveiled after the May 2024 election, it was hailed as a political miracle. The rand perked up. Longterm interest rates softened. Investors briefly rediscovered the word “confidence”. President Cyril...
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168 HOURS in 5 MINUTES By Delia Langenhoven
FRI MAY 30 TUES JUNE 03 Elon Musk said tata to US President Trump on Friday while displaying a conspicuous shiner. It comes after he publicly criticised Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill that’s before Congress, reports the BBC. However, Trump...
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Our MISSING children CRISIS
Zama Nkabinde is one of thousands of parents living with the pain of a missing child. It has been 15 years since her daughter, Amahle, disappeared without a trace. At the time, four-year-old Amahle was living in a place of safety with her brother,...
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Ramaphosa gets braaied at the BOEREWORS Summit
There is a genre of comedy, probably as old as laughter itself, that asks the audience to baste in the sauce of the protagonist’s humiliation. Not being a classicist, I have no idea if this kind of thing appeared in, say, Euripides; not being an...
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War of words
President Cyril Ramaphosa will have a high-stakes encounter with President Donald Trump in the White House on Wednesday, 21 May, which could either reset South Africa’s dreadful relations with the US – or could become a disastrous Zelensky-style...
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Will the Employment Equity Act or the DA’S court challenge do better than BEE or B-BBEE to create more skilled jobs for all South Africans?
At the dawn of democracy, economic power in South Africa remained firmly in white hands, despite the fall of apartheid. The ruling ANC adopted black economic empowerment (BEE) as a policy to change that. Initially focused on ownership, often via...
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Paying for political influence
Daily Maverick has identified at least five different political campaigns running on X in April seemingly being driven by people paid to post. When Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced on 24 April that the VAT hike was being scrapped, almost all...
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VOTERS GATVOL OF GNU FEUDS
Political parties were quick to claim victory after the National Treasury’s announcement in the early hours of Thursday, 24 April, that the 0.5 percentage point VAT increase would be scrapped. “While some continued to play politics, Actionsa made...
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South Africans are not your crash test dummies
Anew strategy to combat the sky-high number of drunk drivers on South Africa’s roads will be tested for the first time this Easter after a disastrous festive season four months ago, the Department of Transport has announced. According to the Road...
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Police minister takes aim at private security guns
South Africa’s booming private security sector is about to change. If proposed draft amendments to Private Security Industry Regulations are enacted, armed officers at malls may become a thing of the past. And if there’s a violent protest, private...
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Cheatgpt CRISIS in SA universities
Students’ use of AI to scam their way to a degree is reaching epidemic proportions in our higher learning institutions
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Our privacy laws are shielding sex criminals
Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Mmamoloko Kubayi has had to shelve her plan to publish the National Register for Sex Offenders (NRSO) by the end of February because offenders’ privacy needs to be protected. Individuals named in the...
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Shocking CO$T of National Health Lab HACK ATTACK
In damning evidence before Parliament this month, the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) admitted that its IT systems were out of date and could not be updated, and its staff were not fully apprised of the danger of clicking on unknown links...
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How the BUDGET AFFECTS YOU
After weeks of political brinkmanship, contentious debates and an unprecedented failed presentation, Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana finally tabled the revised 2025/26 Budget on Wednesday, 12 March. The significant backlash against the initial 2%...
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STARVING for a degree
In the coming weeks, thousands of university students will walk across a stage, proudly accepting their degrees and diplomas. For many, this achievement will be marred by a struggle with hunger. A final-year BA student at the Durban University of...
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The plan to stop SA’S JAIL HOUSE ROT
Minister Pieter Groenewald and prison bosses crack down on SA’S jail contraband – 41,000 phones, booze, drugs and tattoo machines smuggled in as inmates fuel organised crime
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BOER soek nog ‘n Trump-soort ou
Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands ahoy: the Solidarity Movement is taking its campaign on the road. The movement is the umbrella body for a range of Afrikaans interest groups including Afriforum and the union Solidarity, and it includes the...
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All systems go for SA’S G20
Despite Trump’s tantrums over SA’S Expropriation Act and the claims about our government treating ‘certain classes of people badly’, foreign affairs ministers will be in Joburg for the G20 meeting
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Alcohol can lead you to kill or hurt your loved ones
An Eastern Cape high court judge has asked Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi to consider adding a warning about domestic violence to the labels on all liquor bottles and cans, including beer. In the High Court in Makhanda, Judge Avinash Govindjee...
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FAiled State of the MK nation
Aweek before the State of the Nation Address (Sona), this is the state of the official opposition led by former president Jacob Zuma. Launched on 16 December 2023, the umkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party reshaped the country’s political landscape, garnering...
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The Trump effect
US President Donald Trump’s move to reshape US policies on foreign assistance, trade, health and the environment have big implications for South Africa and the region. The flurry of executive orders that Trump signed in the White House on Monday, 20...
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Meet the everyday HEROES behind our matric success
Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube announced this week that the matric class of 2024 achieved an 87.3% pass rate, surpassing the 82.9% recorded in 2023. Every province improved its performance from the previous year, and each achieved a pass rate...
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SA HANGS BY A THREAD OF HOPE IN A WORD UP IN SMOKE
Every year in South African politics is bonkers in ways that rapidly become normalised. To give just two examples: in 2013, a radical new party enters Parliament dressed in the uniforms of labourers and domestic workers. In 2017, the country discovers...
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SA’S CLEANEST swimming beaches this summer
As summer takes hold with sunny skies and balmy temperatures, beaches all over the Western Cape are filling up with locals and tourists looking to enjoy the coastal waters. Municipalities have issued statements to assure the public of the water’s...
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THE MK PARTY’S YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY
On 16 December 2023, former president Jacob Zuma unveiled his new party, umkhonto wesizwe (MK), declaring a political war to be fought with ballots, not bullets, in the name of radical change. A year later, although the party hasn’t reached the top, it...
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FLYING BLIND
For Michele*, it was supposed to be a routine and stress-free Flysafair flight from Johannesburg to George in the Western Cape in October. A two-hour flight such as this is uncomplicated, apart from a bumpy ride here and there caused by turbulence,...
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Guess who else got wet & blessed by Louis?
An explosive, first-hand witness account by Hein Jooste, security boss for alleged diamond scheme fraudster Louis Liebenberg, sketches an astounding portrait of a self-absorbed huckster with a Donald Trump-like appetite for power, corruption and...
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Fatal FENTANYL hits SA
Aflat rectangular package weighing 72kg was intercepted at Mexico’s Benito Juárez International Airport at the end of September. According to a statement the airport released at the time, the package contained methamphetamine and it was destined for...
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What now for us in sh*thole countries?!
Will another Donald Trump presidency be good or bad for South Africa? No one seems sure, not even the South African government. Clayson Monyela, spokesperson for the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, posted an enthusiastic message...
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Amerikkka ON FULL DISPLAY
‘Conventional wisdom suggests that the United States has already reached its peak,” writes the philosopher Bruno Maçães. “But what if it is only now starting to forge its own path forward? What if American history is only just beginning?” In his book...
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‘IT’S ROYAL LAND’
The Ingonyama Trust has been a source of conflict between the government and the Zulu monarch since it was founded in 1994. The trust, which administers the communal land of the Zulu nation, emerged from a secret deal between the National Party and the...
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Connecting the DRUG DOTS from Durban to the world
On 12 January 2021 a container ship travelling from Durban entered the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands and its cargo was unloaded. Three days later, 739.5kg of cocaine was found in one of its containers. This cocaine consignment suggests one of...
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HELEN ZILLE: GNU governments are here to stay (with or without the DA)
DA federal chairperson Helen Zille says it is improbable that any party in South Africa will get a majority vote again, showing that the idea of a Government of National Unity (GNU) is here to stay. This week marks 100 days since the GNU was formed....
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HELL AFFAIRS
It’s assessment time for the Government of National Unity. One hundred days into Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber’s tenure, how do his actions measure up against his words? Daily Maverick sat down with Schreiber, went into the field and gathered...
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Ndumo Game Reserve targeted by a coal and oil shale driller
Conservation managers in one of South Africa’s oldest game reserves are preparing to fight off a coal and oil shale prospecting venture inside the reserve, just as they celebrate its 100th anniversary. Located on Kwazulu-natal’s northern border with...
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DO THE MATH
Budget cuts = 1,000s of teachers facing axe (and even more learners losing lunch and school transport)
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GWEDE eyes the KAROO for OIL & GAS exploration
For the first time since the 1970s, the south-central Karoo Basin, an area that stretches over the central parts of the Karoo, will be subjected to largescale land seismic and airborne surveys to get an idea whether, and how much, oil and natural gas...
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KIDNAPPING SYNDICATES hold South Africa to ransom
On the morning of 17 May, Bongani Khumalo*, a tavern owner in Daveyton, Ekurhuleni, was busy with his regular tasks: serving customers and managing his accounts. Around noon, he stepped out to buy more meat and alcohol from a nearby supermarket. Along...
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