Professor Renfrew Christie risked death by hanging to spy on the apartheid government’s power stations - using his doctoral thesis as a pretext to gain access to the plants in order to gather intel. He became South Africa’s pioneering nuclear whistleblower. In this week’s episode, he explains how he wrote a confession read aloud in court to provide information on how Cape Town’s nuclear power station could be bombed without loss of human life. Don’t Shoot the Messenger is produced by Haji...

Professor Renfrew Christie risked death by hanging to spy on the apartheid government’s power stations - using his doctoral thesis as a pretext to gain access to the plants in order to gather intel. He became South Africa’s pioneering nuclear whistleblower. In this week’s episode, he explains how he wrote a confession read aloud in court to provide information on how Cape Town’s nuclear power station could be bombed without loss of human life. Don’t Shoot the Messenger is produced by Haji...

On 26 September, Cape Town was rocked by tremors after an earthquake occurred off the South African coast. The incident was minor, but it got a lot of people wondering about South Africa’s preparedness in the event of a(nother) major disaster. In this episode, we speak to a disaster management specialist, an earthquake expert, and an activist who has been horrified for years by the risk posed by Koeberg nuclear power station. Don’t Shoot the Messenger is produced by Haji Mohamed Dawjee and...

On 26 September, Cape Town was rocked by tremors after an earthquake occurred off the South African coast. The incident was minor, but it got a lot of people wondering about South Africa’s preparedness in the event of a(nother) major disaster. In this episode, we speak to a disaster management specialist, an earthquake expert, and an activist who has been horrified for years by the risk posed by Koeberg nuclear power station. Don’t Shoot the Messenger is produced by Haji Mohamed Dawjee and...

When legal advocacy group Ndifuna Ukwazi launched a 2019 campaign to have Rondebosch Golf Club land re-allocated for affordable housing, it was revealed that the club was paying less than R1000 rent a year for hectares of public land. In this episode, we take a look at those crazy leases - and find that around the country, some golf courses on municipal land are paying as little as R20 rent per year. You read that right: R20 annually. In this episode, we have no trouble making the case...

When legal advocacy group Ndifuna Ukwazi launched a 2019 campaign to have Rondebosch Golf Club land re-allocated for affordable housing, it was revealed that the club was paying less than R1000 rent a year for hectares of public land. In this episode, we take a look at those crazy leases - and find that around the country, some golf courses on municipal land are paying as little as R20 rent per year. You read that right: R20 annually. In this episode, we have no trouble making the case...

On this week’s show, we’re exploring the global movement called QAnon: a web of conspiracy theories, fantasies and lies which may have started in the head of a former tech journalist from Johannesburg, but which has spread to the United States Congress and the White House. And we’re looking at its growing hold on South African social media users too – many of whom may not even realise that they are playing into a vast and very dangerous game. Additional Resources: For further information on...

On this week’s show, we’re exploring the global movement called QAnon: a web of conspiracy theories, fantasies and lies which may have started in the head of a former tech journalist from Johannesburg, but which has spread to the United States Congress and the White House. And we’re looking at its growing hold on South African social media users too – many of whom may not even realise that they are playing into a vast and very dangerous game. Additional Resources: For further information on...

A teacher logs on to a WhatsApp group at a specified time. All students who are present send emojis to indicate their readiness. And so class begins. This is what education has looked like in some parts of South Africa during the Covid-19 lockdown, with teachers, NGOs and businesses scrambling to find ways to keep pupils learning from afar. The innovation is there, the technology is available, and online teaching does away with some of the practical problems which plague the local education...

A teacher logs on to a WhatsApp group at a specified time. All students who are present send emojis to indicate their readiness. And so class begins. This is what education has looked like in some parts of South Africa during the Covid-19 lockdown, with teachers, NGOs and businesses scrambling to find ways to keep pupils learning from afar. The innovation is there, the technology is available, and online teaching does away with some of the practical problems which plague the local education...

Stephen McGown is regarded as Al-Qaeda’s longest surviving hostage. Since his release in 2017, he has been putting his life back together, and is working on a book about his experience. In this episode, he discusses the profound strangeness of trying to readjust to normal life after losing 6 years - and his ultimate feelings on Al-Qaeda may surprise you. Six Years With Al-Qaeda: The Stephen McGown Story will be published by Maverick 451 in late November. Keep an eye on the Daily Maverick...

Stephen McGown is regarded as Al-Qaeda’s longest surviving hostage. Since his release in 2017, he has been putting his life back together, and is working on a book about his experience. In this episode, he discusses the profound strangeness of trying to readjust to normal life after losing 6 years - and his ultimate feelings on Al-Qaeda may surprise you. Six Years With Al-Qaeda: The Stephen McGown Story will be published by Maverick 451 in late November. Keep an eye on the Daily Maverick...

Your local bookstore will definitely stock ‘Harry Potter’, but when it comes to South African kids’ books featuring children of colour, all bets are off. The local publishing industry admits there’s a big problem - but just how big, nobody knows. In this episode, we speak to local writers Buhle Ngaba and Mohale Mashigo about the crisis in representation that led to them creating their own work for South African children. Pan MacMillan publishers Miemie du Plessis and Sibongile Machika talk...

Your local bookstore will definitely stock ‘Harry Potter’, but when it comes to South African kids’ books featuring children of colour, all bets are off. The local publishing industry admits there’s a big problem - but just how big, nobody knows. In this episode, we speak to local writers Buhle Ngaba and Mohale Mashigo about the crisis in representation that led to them creating their own work for South African children. Pan MacMillan publishers Miemie du Plessis and Sibongile Machika talk...

Since a March 2017 Western Cape High Court ruling, you can’t be arrested for smoking marijuana within your own home in South Africa. But that doesn’t mean marijuana is legal: you still can’t buy it or sell it anywhere. It’s also been totally unclear how much weed you’re allowed to possess for your own use. The courts gave Parliament two years to draw up the necessary laws to take South Africa out of legal limbo. With the deadline about to run out, a draft bill has been produced - which both...

Since a March 2017 Western Cape High Court ruling, you can’t be arrested for smoking marijuana within your own home in South Africa. But that doesn’t mean marijuana is legal: you still can’t buy it or sell it anywhere. It’s also been totally unclear how much weed you’re allowed to possess for your own use. The courts gave Parliament two years to draw up the necessary laws to take South Africa out of legal limbo. With the deadline about to run out, a draft bill has been produced - which both...

Seven months into the Covid-19 pandemic, frighteningly little is still known about this new disease. But one thing that is now clear is that Covid-19 is not simply a lung disease. It can attack the brain, the kidneys, the gut, the blood system and more. And for the people now known as the Covid Long-haulers, the effects of Covid-19 can persist for month after month - laying them low with over 60 separate physical symptoms. There are over half a million Covid Long-haulers in the UK alone, and...

Lockdown conditions imposed all over the world have succeeded in halting certain types of illegal trade – but also given rise to new and expanded black markets. And while some of them are relatively benign, others are anything but. In this episode we’re taking a look at the Covid-19 underworld: how the global lockdown has both disrupted traditional black markets, but also birthed new kinds of criminals. We’re taking a trip to the underbelly of the Dark Web, where the illegal products for...

“Zooming With The Zumas” is the real title of a real YouTube series offering the public a front-row seat to intimate video chats between former South African president Jacob Zuma and his son Duduzane. In this episode, we rope in Daily Maverick journalist Marianne Thamm to help unpack the perplexing world of Zooming with the Zumas: fact-checking some of the confounding claims made by the Zumas, analysing what it tells us about their undeniably curious family dynamics, and interrogating what...

The great global slowdown imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic is forcing a slower pace of life on most of us, whether we like it or not. There’s something about hitting the brakes for this amount of time that can feel deeply anxiety-inducing - so we thought we’d use this moment to explore the benefits of taking it nice and slow. In this week’s episode, we’re investigating the virtues of slowness: learning about the secrets of the world’s slowest mammals, exploring the delights of the Slow Food...

In late April, Cuba sent 217 healthcare workers to South Africa to help fight Covid-19. A tremendous humanitarian gesture involving heroic doctors? Perhaps. But the deployment looks likely to cost the South African government almost half a billion rand - at a time when South Africa has its own doctors and nurses sitting unemployed. What’s really going on? Cuba has been lending its doctors to other countries since the 1960s as a gesture of international solidarity, and those doctors have won...