News/Politics

While State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele was suggesting that the controversial proposed Media Tribunal and the Protection of Information Bill will not suppress the media, Sunday Times journalist Mzilikazi Wa Afrika was appearing in the Nelspruit Regional Court on Wednesday where charges of fraud, forgery and uttering were withdrawn against him. Wa Afrika had been […]

In history, the feudal epoch was followed by the renaissance. As is usual in SA, we are going about it arse about face

The debate about the Secrecy Bill has shifted a little, from “OMG, what were they thinking” to a more nuanced discussion about what outcomes the civil-society coalition really want on the bill. This is less fun than the first debate, which was a love in where everyone agreed with everyone else, that something must be […]

By Ilham Rawoot While big things are happening on the media freedom front, it seems that some of the people on the inside of the SABC are the ones blocking the news themselves. This doesn’t make things any easier in a tense atmosphere where journalists still have to deal with difficult spokespeople who think that […]

“Disaster” doesn’t begin to describe the troubled oil scene in Nigeria. Last June, in the immediate wake of the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the New York Times ran an article exposing a crisis in Nigeria that should have been capable of piquing the conscience of even the most hardened oil barons. It […]

Themba Maseko, the spokesperson for the Cabinet, today confirmed that the government is committed to accommodating the views expressed during public hearings on the Protection of Information Bill “as far as practicable and reasonable”. Maseko told a media briefing — following Cabinet’s regular Wednesday meeting — that they welcomed the representations received from interested parties […]

It was a sunny day in Shanghai on Nanjing West road, apparently the longest shopping road in the world. We ex-pats were doing what ex-pats do on a day off, sitting in a favourite pub, The Long Bar, fronting the Ritz-Portman hotel. While we sipped our beers a small body of citizens gathered outside the […]

If a sliver of South Africa’s future can be glimpsed through the prism of the current public-service protests, then the future should be delayed indefinitely. The unchecked culture of irresponsible protests has been allowed to grow into a soulless monster, ready to incite anarchy and we should all be afraid. Much has been said about […]

Mills persuasively identifies the one thing that outweighs all others in fast growing economies that have pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. It is leadership.

Never had I imagined having to break in and out of work. To understand the nature of this strike, you need to realise that a hospital has both clinical and non-clinical staff. The clinical staff are far more reliant on the non-clinical staff in order for the hospital to function in any capacity and to […]