Much tighter control of the spies at the National Intelligence Agency is needed to prevent them from abusing their broad domestic security mandate, civil society and media groups have told a ministerial review commission, set up by Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils in the wake of the ”hoax email” and illegal surveillance scandals.
The Northern Cape provincial department of health will remain under the administration of the provincial treasury and the premier’s office “until such a time that our turnaround strategy is complete,” says the department’s acting MEC, Gomolemo Lucas. Instead of operating independently, the day-to-day running of the department will be in the hands of the treasury and the premier.
Percy Zvomuya reviews Ghoema, currently running at the Market Theatre.
Percy Zvomuya pays tribute to novelist and filmmaker Ousmane Sembene.
With up to -billion in potential investment on the Congo River and the prospect of producing enough clean energy to light up the whole of Africa, the Grand Inga project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is as big as its name suggests. The plan, to build the world’s largest hydropower facility, is being driven by the continent’s biggest power utility Eskom.
Zimbabwe’s government is adding more bricks to the wall it has built between itself and the rest of the world. Starting next month, university students who have received government assistance — which is most of them — will no longer be able to leave the country legally to seek employment elsewhere.
The Mail & Guardian continued to move onwards and upwards in the first three months of this year, notching up impressive circulation growth between January and March. The latest Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) figures, released on May 17, show that the M&G‘s circulation figure for the period was 47 133 — 5 018 copies, or 11,9%, per week more than in the same period last year
Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi continues to fiddle while Khutsong burns. As anti-incorporation protests turned violent this week, the minister sent residents a message that can only inflame their anger. After weeks of peaceful demonstration against the town’s removal from Gauteng to North West under cross-border municipality legislation, youths this week looted shops and property belonging to Somali and Pakistani traders.
Civil society organisations and the Pan African Parliament should realise that they “are not in contradiction” and that their relationship should be “complementary not adversarial”, Getrude Mongella, president of the PAP, said this week in an address at the parliament’s first consultative dialogue with African civil society organisations.
Percy Zvomuya reviews Zakes Mda latest offering <i>Cion</i>