INSTEAD of focusing efforts at containment, the country was transfixed by what President Ramaphosa described as an `exercise to carry the pride and hope of the nation`. Instead of closing borders to the new epicentres of Italy and Spain, the country was welcoming travellers, without so much as a...

UPDATED 14/03/2020 HEALTH SOUTH AFRICA’S inability to detect a Covid–19 patient incoming from a red zone (Italy) is cause for alarm. Health Minister Zweli Mkhize characterisation of so-called ‘patient zero’ as ‘no big deal’ amidst a rush to give South Africa the ‘all clear’, the failure of his de...

WHILE THE Canadian state of Ontario was removing the cap on the number of marijuana shops in the province, South Africa's drug enforcement agencies were busy taking down a dagga dispensary franchise operation known as Canapax. News of cannabis operations being opened to the public overseas were m...

IMAGINE a world in which the state keeps compulsory psychiatric records of all its citizens dating from birth. A world in which the only mode of treatment is drugs and electroconvulsive shock therapy. A world in which dissident voices, outspoken critics, different points of view are swept away be...