OpEd

JZ must make the workers happy - IFP

The Inkatha Freedom Party branches in Soweto yesterday called for a speedy resolution to the ongoing public servant strike. [ Full Story... ]

Video didn't kill the radio star - and Current TV rocks

When TV began to gain in popularity many lamented the way it would marginalise radio. Particularly concerned about this shift were rock stars, who feared that they might be sidelined by this new-fangled flickering box. [ Full Story... ]

JZ must make workers happy, IFP

The Inkatha Freedom Party branches in Soweto yesterday called for a speedy resolution to the ongoing public servant strike. [ Full Story... ]

More senior staff changes on cards at Presidency "

MORE senior staff changes are looming at the Presidency, with President Jacob Zuma's director-general, Vusi Mavimbela, expected to take up a temporary post in the Department of International Relations and Co-operation. [ Full Story... ]

Zimbabweans can apply in SA for permits

It is not necessary for Zimbabweans to go back home in order to legalise their stay in South Africa, Home Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said yesterday. [ Full Story... ]

Zuma heaps praise on farmers

President Jacob Zuma yesterday praised Bultfontein farmers for initiating community projects in and around the small Free State town. [ Full Story... ]

Top cops linked to corrupt deals "

REVELATIONS of a cosy relationship between the country's former deputy national police commissioner, Hamilton Hlela, and a company that won major tenders worth billions from the SA Police Service (SAPS) have emerged, while the company has undertaken to open its books to scrutiny. [ Full Story... ]

When cops are crooks, who will save us?

LAST Year, Parliament's Standing Committee on Pubilc Accounts (Scopa) grilled the top brass of the police force, including Commissioner Bheki Cele. That was before he became a general. At the heart of the grilling was that a number of police officers had violated police rules which prohibit them from getting involved in certain businesses. [ Full Story... ]

Unions must stick to their guns

The public sector unions would be unwise to veer from their wage demands in the face of excesses shown by politicians and senior public servants who spend public funds without remorse. [ Full Story... ]

SA needs a global battleplan

WITHIN a period of 12 months, President Jacob Zuma has visited Brazil, Russia, India and China, famously known as the Bric nations. Last week's state visit to China (the last of the Bric nations to be visited by the president) was therefore a |significant milestone in South Africa's positioning in global affairs which are in a constant, if not chaotic, state of flux. [ Full Story... ]

Majority has allowed a crony state to develop

If it is true that South Africa is degenerating into a crony state, then it's not just the allegedly powerful, corrupt and greedy elite top dogs who are to blame. [ Full Story... ]

Vavi just won't face up to the basic facts

Zwelinzima Vavi, pictured left, wrote in the Sunday Independent of August 22 about communism and how Ruth First died before she could see it established in South Africa. [ Full Story... ]

Benjamin Pogrund is loyal to a pariah state

I wonder whether pro-Israeli apologists ever sense the sheer hopelessness of their desperate attempts to shield the apartheid regime from legitimate and necessary criticism. [ Full Story... ]

The tragedy of a Parliament of parrots

THE incompetence of Parliament has never been in doubt. During the previous administration, ANC MPs used to mimic then president Thabo Mbeki's speeches. [ Full Story... ]

'ID marriage of convenience' may leave DA a bit thinner

The MOMENT Helen Zille handed Patricia de Lille a DA membership card on Sunday August 15, a palpable sense of relief betrayed De Lille's pretentiously serious look. This was because her knocking at the DA's door since 2009 in search of a job had finally paid off. [ Full Story... ]

Obama's mission impossible

NOW IT'S his turn. After the elder George Bush, Bill Clinton and George Bush the younger, Barack Obama has became the fourth consecutive American president to seek international diplomacy's hitherto impossible prize: Israeli-Palestinian peace. [ Full Story... ]

Black CEOs an endangered species "

I will say it again: I am weary of counting black bodybags in South Africa's boardrooms, particularly in state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Ironically, the casualty rate in the public sector is higher than in the private sector. What could be wrong? [ Full Story... ]

More go to work in US, but it's not enough "

Private employers hired more workers over the past three months than first thought, a glimmer of hope for the weak US economy. But the unemployment rate rose because not enough jobs were created to absorb the growing number of Americans looking for work. [ Full Story... ]

Of Disney and broken, dysfunctional families "

Last week, as the rain lashed outside, my daughter and I settled down for an afternoon of family nostalgia. The type that Walt Disney films excel at. The kind that has given Disney a special position in our house. [ Full Story... ]

The great decline of Europe

The European Union is dying - not a dramatic or sudden death, but one so slow and steady that we may look across the Atlantic one day soon and realise the project of European integration that we've taken for granted over the past half-century is no more. [ Full Story... ]

President Jacob Zuma is also an intellectual

In his article "Populism versus |intelectualism" (August 29), Mcebisi Ndletyana argues that the debate around press freedom, as advanced in remarks from President Jacob Zuma and Pallo Jordan, proves the difference between populism and intellectualism. [ Full Story... ]

Shooting the breeze Can someone please turn down volume of modern life?

I have RA-ADHD - that's recently acquired attention deficit disorder - and I fear I'm not alone. [ Full Story... ]

'Protect me from the whites and Indians'

Deputy Correctional Services Minister Hlengiwe Mkhize has instructed the police to bar white people and Indians from entering her |home in an attempt to shield her family from racial attacks by her neighbours. [ Full Story... ]

Zim cops return to torch Harare shacks

Human rights groups have accused Zimbabwean police of setting fire to an informal settlement in Harare, forcing about 250 people from their homes. [ Full Story... ]

Is Motlanthe merely raising his hand?

IT was not, by any account, an idle comment. ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe's remarks at the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) national general council (NGC) were calculated and meant to achieve a particular end. [ Full Story... ]

Strikers let premature babies die - why the silence?

DURING more than 50 years as a journalist, I have reported or heard about every possible human vileness in dealing with other humans. Now, in Johannesburg, in the actions of striking workers, I have found a new low in human behaviour. [ Full Story... ]

Posturing won't take press debate forward "

THE ANC government could not have chosen a more inopportune moment to table the Protection of Information Bill before Parliament. [ Full Story... ]

Populism versus intellectualism "

THE contrasting views offered by former arts and culture minister Pallo Jordan and President Jacob Zuma on media freedom suggest a clash between intellectual elitism and populism. Jordan insists on retaining the intellectualism that defined previous generations of ANC leadership. But Zuma protests that such intellectual pursuits are not worth preserving if they are not representative of South Africa's downtrodden. [ Full Story... ]

'Protect me from the whites and Indians'

Deputy Correctional Services Minister Hlengiwe Mkhize has instructed the police to bar white people and Indians from entering her |home in an attempt to shield her family from racial attacks by her neighbours. [ Full Story... ]

Woman-friendly army proposal lights up the imagination

So our army needs a "woman-friendly arsenal", according to Deputy Defence and Military Veterans Minister Thabang Makwetla. Fine! But what does that mean? Friendly towards women aimed at or easy to use for female soldiers? I guess the latter. [ Full Story... ]