The SABC will have to rewrite its television licence application with the IBA’s assistance, writes Jacquie Golding-Duffy The SABC’s application for an amendment to its television licences — hastily submitted during a stand-off with the Independent Broadcast Authority — is fraught with errors and will be declared null and void. The corporation will then attempt, […]

The housing crisis: Three lively responses to this newspaper’s recent coverage Simplistic solutions to the housing crisis will bring unintended results — such as the apartheid-style settlement of the poor away from cities, argues Dr Angela Tait It is beginning to sound rather hollow to blame the housing shortage on the backlog inherited by the […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy THE Congress of South African Trade Unions cannot count on the support of its main affiliate, the 300 000-strong National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), in its planned anti- privatisation strike on Tuesday. Although, as a Cosatu affiliate, the NUM is bound to some degree by the federation’s decision to strike, ambivalence is being […]

South African psychiatry — so important to national healing — is in dire straits, argues Dr Zanele Sidzumo Baqwa ‘PLEASE, Mr Gunman, may I have my new shoes back,” said my 11-year-old daughter, Nosizwe Lise, to the hijacker speeding off in the hired minibus he had taken from us at gunpoint. This happened outside the […]

Marion Edmunds The Foundation for Equality Before the Law has spent its last penny on its first rally, to be held in Pretoria on Saturday. Chairman of the Foundation, Dr Theo de Jager said this week that the Foundation was spending R22 000 on the rally at which it hoped to make its first public […]

The painful process of resolving the Wits crisis has begun. Philippa Garson reports THE first painful steps towards healing the University of the Witwatersrand’s troubled psyche are being taken: the suspension of deputy vice-chancellor William Malegapuru Makgoba is likely to be lifted at today’s Council meeting. The protagonists — academics pitted against each other –are […]

NIA spying row: Police accuse Dirk Coetzee of being ordered to spy on them — Coetzee denies all and wishes he’d never exposed Police hit Gaye Davis THE stand-off between police and the National Intelligence Agency over allegations that it was spying on senior policemen has sparked fears that co-operation between police and the agency […]

Rehana Rossouw LIE detector tests for top ranking policemen aimed at rooting out corruption in the force have been temporarily suspended while police examine the practicalities of implementing the search for crooked cops nationwide. Last year, in a well-publicised exercise National Police Commissioner George Fivaz took a lie detector test — which he passed. Questions […]

Wits University faces the challenge of finding a non-racial solution to a racial problem with the Makgoba affair, writes Russell Ally Professor Etienne Mureinik correctly pointed out in his article (Mail & Guardian December 22 to January 4) that there are important, larger lessons to learn from the William Makgoba affair. It is unfortunate, however, […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy The task team appointed by Deputy President Thabo Mbeki to look at the media will be reviewing the South African Communications Services (SACS) — government’s current communications model — in a bid to find new and more effective means of disseminating government information to the public. A brief for Friday’s meeting sent by […]