It all began with two tweets that Noseweek Editor Martin Welz posted to announce the arrival of the magazine's December issue. Then Jacques Pauw, one of the journalists mentioned in the punted Noseweek article, immediately responded on Twitter, launching a twitter war (twar) that had thousands of tweeps on the edge of their seats:

New leaked emails shed light on SARS rogue unit and its allies.

Documents leaked to Noseweek reveal that when Skollie van Rensburg of the SA Revenue Service's so-called rogue unit gave testimony to the Sikhakhane panel, he was shaken at the extent of the panel's knowledge about the controversial unit.

Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane was appointed by SARS's then acting Commissioner Ivan Pillay in 2014 to investigate allegations of impropriety against Johann van Loggerenberg by his former lover, Pretoria attorney and SSA (State Security Agency) agent Belinda Walter.

Court officer Ashin Singh sows discord among his peers.

A Pietermaritzburg magistrate with a shoot-from the hip attitude who was recently charged with threatening a court reporter, has told a retired senior magistrate in his circuit to "go to hell"; that her health issues are the result of "karma"; and that "the views of your lesbian friend" should be ignored.

It might just be the last exchange of words between magistrate Ashin Singh and retired senior magistrate Petronella Joubert who stepped down on 30 November in a feud that has run for well over a decade. They have repeatedly complained about each other to superiors and oversight bodies during that time.

Environmental offender given green light in Western Cape.

The quiet Boland town of Wellington - known for its vistas, wine, heritage and brandy - could soon add a waste-to-energy plant to its tourist attractions.

Operated by known environmental offender Interwaste (see noses178,194 & 209) the plant turns trash into gas for powering turbines that feed the electricity grid. The facility, which falls within the Drakenstein Municipality, obtained the environmental authorisation on 2 November to build a waste-to-energy plant, including a waste incineration facility.

The assault by the state on the community living at Xolobeni, Mbizana, in the Eastern Cape drags on as the Amadiba people are again compelled to seek the protection of the courts.

Northern Pondoland has been a hotbed of activism and violence ever since Australian mining company Mineral Commodities (MRC) expressed an interest in mining the dunes along their pristine coastline. The titanium to be extracted is required for components of tablet computers and smartphones.

Wits student Kamal Ramburuth-Hurt is driving a campaign to revolutionise the 'irrelevant' economics curriculum taught at South African universities. It's called Rethinking Economics for Africa (Refa) - and it's gaining traction.

Wits politics and economics student Kamal Ramburuth-Hurt, 22, came to the realisation that "something wasn't right" while he was sitting in an economics lecture on how the labour market worked. "We were learning about bargaining power, unions and budget constraints but the neoclassical model we were being taught just didn't make sense."

Rates crusader strikes at purse of Joburg's elite and powerful.

Howick-based property rates crusader Rob McLaren is doing a fine job of making sure he is on fewer Christmas card lists by asking the City of Johannesburg to revalue just about every high-value property in Sandton - including homes belonging to the Chinese government and the family of Robert Mugabe.

McLaren has objected to 104 property valuations by the city-contracted firm Evaluations Enhanced Property Appraisals which compiled the General Valuation Roll (GVR) for 2018.

Powerful tropical cyclones made headlines in 2018. In August, Post-Tropical Cyclone Lane wrought huge damage in the US; it was quickly followed by Hurricane Florence. Most tropical cyclones - the w ...

Human activity will almost certainly push global temperatures more than 2 degrees beyond pre-industrial levels. Even with aggressive action, some climate scientists are suggesting it may be too late to reverse course. While there's plenty of uncertainty in climate science, there's no good reason to assume anything other than the worst possible outcome. And there's a lot more certainty in human behaviour. We're short-sighted, fightor-flight driven animals. The threat of climate change is too distant for the human brain to meaningfully react to it in the here and now.

I have been writing science stories in Zulu lately. For a bit of fun, I used Google Translate to see how badly the platform would translate it, and I was pleasantly surprised by the intelligible result. Professionals in the South African translation industry are not as happy as I am about this result, and they are not the only ones.

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