Sam Mednick, Fay Abuelgasim For three years, Dr Jamal Eltaeb made excruciating choices. Who should live and potentially die? Should he operate without the right medicines if it might save someone’s life? How would he find fuel to keep the hospital’s lights on? By Sam Mednick, Fay Abuelgasim As Sudan’s war raged around him, Dr Jamal Eltaeb, only one decision was easy: Keep working. The orthopaedic surgeon was leading Al Nao hospital in Omdurman, just outside the capital, Khartoum, as control of the urban area shifted between Sudan’s army and paramilitary fighters. As the front line moved closer and the…
Author: nkosinathi
South African farmers are turning goat milk into a profitable niche. Learn about the benefits of Saanen-Boer crosses, value-added processing for cheese and soap, and expert tips for succeeding in the dairy goat industry. By Vateka Halile Goat milk has been part of South African households for a long time. Even though it is no longer consumed daily, goat milk still does well in business, especially in cosmetics and other value-added products. These days, it can be processed into amasi, yoghurt, kefir and cheese. Goat milk is also often chosen by people with lactose intolerance. Producing good-quality goat milk, however,…
Coexistence is not unity. Geography is not belonging. Until we face that, we are not building a nation. We are only maintaining a ceasefire. By Themba Khumalo The goals and desires of South Africans are still racially divided. Stop whispering it. Stop coating it with rainbow-coloured euphemisms and the soft soap of diplomatic cowardice. This truth — uncomfortable, unvarnished, stubborn as winter smoke — sits at the dead centre of our public life. It exposes us not as a nation united in purpose, but as a country sharing a flag, a passport, and a brittle myth we have the nerve…
Cynthia Philisiwe Shange’s story stretched from Lamontville to international stages, carried by a presence that never asked to be softened or contained. Across film, television, and public life, she brought a grounded humanity that made people feel seen, while remaining a steady, loving figure within her family. By Themba Khumalo Some lives do not merely pass through history, but shape it—lives that, like a river, carve new paths through the hardest stone. Cynthia Philisiwe Shange was such a life: steady, forceful, and impossible to ignore. From the streets of Lamontville to the world stage, she moved with a quiet certainty…
Bending low in the baking sun and sheathed in heavy protective gear, Hussein Idris sweeps a metal detector across a vast minefield in central Khartoum that was once a park beloved by local families. AFP The war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has moved on from the capital since the military retook it last year, but Khartoum is still littered with explosive remnants that authorities are struggling to clear. Sixty-year-old Idris is part of the team slowly demining Al-Mugran Park, where dozens of red skull-and-crossbones signs warn civilians to keep away. After a long morning,…
Pope Leo XIV described Angola as a “beautiful yet wounded country” during Mass in Kilamba, paying tribute to a nation that endured nearly three decades of civil war. He called on Angolans to “build together a country where old divisions are overcome once and for all, where hatred and violence disappear”. By Yesim Dikmen, Joshua McElwee Pope Leo XIV urged Angolans on Sunday to overcome divisions after decades of war, first at a Mass in a field outside Luanda and then in a prayer at a site that was once a hub for transatlantic slavery, events that jointly drew roughly…
What began as a minor bumper bash in a suburb north of Joburg turned into unimaginable tragedy—gunfire cutting through the moment, a husband killed, and his wife left fighting for her life, all unfolding in full view of children who should never have witnessed such horror. By Themba Khumalo In Emmarentia, Johannesburg, last Saturday did not begin like a day destined for horror. It began the way most days do in a suburb like this—quietly, almost innocently, with a family in a car moving through the ordinary rhythms of life. There probably were errands to run, or perhaps no destination…
Andronicca Rasebotsa carries her five-year-old daughter everywhere — to the clinic, to sleep, through every moment of every day. Her child cannot walk, speak, or feed herself. Rasebotsa believes it did not have to be this way. She wants answers. She wants justice. And she is still waiting. By Israel Nkuna A Limpopo mother is calling for answers about her daughter’s condition, and for better healthcare and social support for families caring for children with severe disabilities in rural areas. Andronicca Rasebotsa, 38, from Mphame Village, lives in the Greater Tzaneen Local Municipality with her three children – including her…
Africa’s youth have been called the continent’s greatest asset so many times that the phrase has lost its weight. Assets are meant to be invested in. The real question is who benefits from keeping this one deferred. By Cindy Kasanga Africa is young; its youth population is projected to rise by 132 million this decade alone. But demographic scale is not destiny. A continent’s youth profile is not a strategy, and invoking it as one has become a way of avoiding the harder question: Why have the political, institutional, and economic investments needed to convert that demographic into shared prosperity…
Part 3: The Man Behind the Voice – Behind every note is a man who nearly never sang again. What kept him here changes everything you thought you knew about him. By Themba Khumalo The Phone Call That Saved His Life Behind the public voice — the radio presence, the stage performer, the cultural guardian — is a deeply human story of struggle, vulnerability, and hard-fought resilience. Mbuso has spoken openly about his long battle with anxiety and depression — not in the carefully managed way that public figures sometimes do, but with raw, unguarded honesty. In 2018, he came…