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Hard Landing Southern Anglola 1985 - Hamilton

Wild Flights and Hard Landings over Africa

In the years that I have been working and travelling as a journalist on this continent, some of my most memorable experiences have been on aeroplanes. For me, that precise moment when the wheels lift off the ground is always a thrilling experience. As you hang in the sky in that first ethereal split second, time itself seems to be suspended, holding you in the thrall of the promise of the destination that lies ahead. But sometimes, the flight itself is as much of an adventure as the place you are going to.

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A cleaning lady helped me cross the barrier from physical recovery to mental restoration

Photo Credit: Canva The blackness of night surrounded me. Stars glowed faintly overhead. The rank smell of unharvested poppies filled the air. I was weighed down with a camera and heavy backpack with batteries, food, water, some spare socks, and a long cloth for sleeping under. I was also wearing heavy Kevlar plates in my

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The tangled thread that joins Steve Tshwete to Siya Kolisi and World Cup victory

The tangled thread that joins Steve Tshwete to Siya Kolisi and World Cup victory

Photo Credit: Thomas Serer on Unsplash. As we celebrate our truly fabulous World Cup victory, it is worth remembering the context in which it was made possible. It’s worth remembering the journey of Steve Tshwete and so many others like him. As we celebrate our truly fabulous World Cup victory, it is worth remembering the

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Enola Gay birthed the first of 13 000 nuclear bombs and a legacy too ghastly to contemplate

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay I recently watched the fascinating movie Oppenheimer about Robert Oppenheimer, “the father of the atomic bomb” and his direction of the Manhattan Project. It reminded me that I wrote this opinion piece for The Daily Maverick on 2 August 2022 about the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on

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