News/Politics

The Constitutional Court has reserved judgement on an application brought before it which seeks an order to compel parliament and the president to enact a law recognising Muslim marriages. The court according to the Mail & Guardian link above appears to have narrowed its problems down to two issues ie whether it can be the […]

As we noted earlier this week the row over British members of parliament claiming expenses on their second homes does not revolve around the issue of whether they were legal or not but rather the question of their moral defensibility. Indeed in the overwhelming majority of cases the items concerned were totally legitimate in accordance […]

One of the deadliest political put-downs I have seen was actually framed as a compliment. The then prime minister, BJ Vorster, when commenting on the performance of United Party leader Sir de Villiers Graaff, emphasised his gentleman-like qualities and concluded that no prime minister could have wished for a more suitable leader of the opposition. […]

It’s very commendable for Cosatu to have gone to such great lengths to fight for workers’ rights in the Vodacom-Vodafone deal. Cosatu filed court papers opposing the transaction in which Vodafone would acquire a 15% stake in Vodacom from Telkom for a cash consideration of R22.5 billion. The transaction increases Vodafone’s shareholding in Vodacom from 50% […]

The thing I love most about British and South African politics is that no matter how serious an issue is, the politicians somehow manage to make such a matzoth pudding out of it that it becomes more rewarding to watch this lot unfolding on television or in the newspapers, than it is to visit any […]

Harvard Business Review have just emailed me the story that is being run by most major French publications about how women on management teams have fared better than men in the current financial crisis. Elle, Le Monde and many other publications have presented CERAM Professor Michel Ferrary’s research, which shows that companies with more women […]

The Liberal quota for gender parity and the empowerment of women in the public sector is constructed by averaging, in percentage terms, the number of women in the population, with the number of women in all parts of the economy, with the percentage of primary child caregivers (and in loco parentis) who are women. This […]

Even before the Lewinsky affair made him a by-word for sexual incontinence, the libidinous Bill Clinton had been embroiled in a sex scandal that nearly toppled his presidency almost from the outset. In 1994, a certain Paula Jones sued him for sexual harassment, claiming he had propositioned her three years earlier, exposing himself in the […]

ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe has confirmed that the ruling party is discussing moving the skills directorate from the labour department to the newly formed department of higher education and training. Speculation about moving the skills development initiatives that are run by the department of labour to the education department has been simmering for many years. […]

There are two compelling reasons why I was thrilled to see President Jacob Zuma confirming that Dr Pieter Mulder, leader of the Freedom Front Plus, was being given the post of deputy minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries. First and foremost is that it tells us that the president — and by extension the government […]

I think it is most appropriate that Zaps is removing the shower head from the president’s cranium, with the caveat that the removal may only be temporary, depending on performance. And as Zapiro (bless his satirical name) avows, it is not due to political pressure on the cartoonist. If people are going to continually ridicule […]

Is the enlarged South African cabinet, announced by President Jacob Zuma, too big? Perhaps, but not much more than many countries. If South Africa is suffering from cabinet minister inflation, so is the rest of the world. A glance at the number of cabinet ministers in a range of countries, some in the developed world, […]