OPINION

long-overdue announcement earlier this month that 19 000 low-risk inmates would be released from prison.LIVE | All the latest coronavirus and lockdown updatesIt is a bold and necessary step to save lives as Covid-19 threatens to wreak havoc in South Africa's overcrowded prisons, GroundUp reported.Under the plan, people who have been sentenced for "crimes of…

2020-05-25 15:59 The government expected quiet, unquestioning obedience from South Africans. Instead of trusting the public, being open and honest with them, the government has wasted goodwill and turned the public against it, writes Geordin Hill-Lewis.Common struggle through times of crises often has the effect of upending old acrimonies, and turning adversaries into allies. South…

2020-05-20 15:30 Children are suffering increasingly from preventable infectious diseases, including TB and measles, due to missed vaccinations.When a novel coronavirus now known as SARS-CoV-2 first entered the world stage on the heels of the Chinese New Year in January 2020, little was known about it and its impact on people, health systems and countries.…

2020-05-20 12:03 The information needed to make far-reaching decisions, such as extending the ban on the sale of cigarettes and alcohol, is still not readily available to Dlamini-Zuma’s department, but the minister went ahead and made these decisions anyway.The Covid pandemic seems to have sent South Africa down a constitutional rabbit hole. The country is…

2020-05-18 13:30 In the past 50 days of lockdown, those incidents (of police brutality) represent a tiny fraction of my personal dealings with hundreds of other police. And their behaviour has told a vividly different story, writes Murray Williams.The policeman grabbed the journalist’s nipple. Squeezed hard. And twisted, painfully.The same policeman elbowed another journalist in…