Afternoon Drive with John Maytham

Guest: Debbie Schafer | MEC for Education at Western Cape - Government

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Guest: Nikolay Petrov | senior research fellow on the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House in London 

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Guest: Ferial Haffajee | Associate Editor  at Daily Maverick

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Guest: Ebrahim Fakir |

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Guest: Nic Van Graan

Cape Town-based band, Year of Dogs, released their debut single “Sweet Red” on all major platforms  last week.

Fresh onto the indie scene, the song is the first of several tracks that will come out over the course of the year.

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Guest: Prof Lynn Morris

New research has shown that vaccines may not be as effective against the mutated strain of Covid-19 found in South Africa.

Penny Moore, a researcher at South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases and co-author of the study says data suggests the variant could partially evade the defences vaccines build in our bodies' immune systems.

That may mean existing vaccines won't provide as much protection to people, and that those who have had the original virus could be reinfected with the new strain.

However, both Pfizer and Moderna say the can tweak their vaccines to combat the variants within about six weeks.

We speak to Professor Lynn Morris, principal medical scientist and head of HIV Virology at the NICD.

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Guest: Malibongwe Tyilo | Associate Editor at Maverick Life

Associate editor, Malibongwe Tyilo, writes in Maverick Life that long before wearing a protective mask became a global phenomena thanks to Covid-19, there were many companies developing them.

And some are very hi-tech. You can find masks that analyse the air you breathe, others that have ventilators, microphones and UV lights, and one that can even talk to Siri.

He joins me now to tell us about them.

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Guest: Kate Skinner

Google has threatened to pull its search engine from Australia, and Facebook says it will pull its news from its feed for users in that country, if a new law comes into effect.

The Australian government has proposed legislation which would force the two companies to negotiate payments to news media companies for their content.

Google says that after looking at the law in detail, it does not see a way, with the financial and operational risks,  for it to continue offering its services in Australia.

It claims the country wants to make it pay to show links to and snippets of news stories in Google Search, not just for news articles featured in places like Google News.

Australia's prime minister says the government does not "respond to threats”.

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Guest: Sindiswa Busuku

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