”Black youth is suffering tremendously because of the ANC government’s so-called policy of black economic empowerment, which — like the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither an empire, holy nor Roman — does not empower blacks.” In the first of a series of encounters with party leaders, Drew Forrest puts 10 tricky questions to Tony Leon.

”I still believe in looking for the voices, perspectives and experiences of black people.” Drew Forrest speaks to Unisa vice-chancellor Barney Pityana, who gives vent to his worries about tertiary mergers, the media, black intellectuals and the state of South Africa’s democracy.

Deputy President Jacob Zuma has a serious difficulty in relation to the bribery investigation that still hangs over him. If the allegations are, as he says, ”defamatory” and ”utterly baseless”, why does National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka take them so seriously?

The amiable, soft-spoken, self-deprecatingly jocular giant with no hair and a plastic cooking spatula in one hand — could he be the meanest, baddest, most silently menacing world heavyweight champion who ever threw leather? Former king of the boxing ring George Foreman now boasts the title ‘King of the Grill’.

More than half a sample of 400 trade union leaders tracked by an academic research project have done ”extremely” well out of South Africa’s democratic transition and a ”mobile” 51% of worker leaders have attained affluence beyond ”their wildest expectations”.

This week’s surprise 100-basis point-cut in the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) repurchase rate came against the background of optimism about prospects for the global economy, including an upbeat review by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

A respected university research outfit has cast grave doubt on President Thabo Mbeki’s 2005 deadline for the finalisation of the land restitution process, insisting that more than 11 000 rural land claims remain unsettled.

South African business owners are, surprisingly, among the world’s most upbeat about economic prospects — but are also concerned about red tape and bureaucracy as brakes on growth.