The overriding theme of our first directors general report card is that it is a hard job to do. Why? Most directors general are new; many have been in office for less than a year. The only director general who has spent more than one term in office is Frank Chikane, the head of the Presidency. Have a look at our assessments of Chikane and his colleagues.

Senior officials of the National Prosecuting Authority have expressed fears that it is engaged in a cover-up of the extent to which its staff looted at least R1-million from the C-fund, set up to pay off informers. The Mail & Guardian is in possession of a top-secret dossier, prepared in December 2004, containing information relating to the alleged misuse of funds by more than 20 officials.

King Juan Carlos of Spain has become the latest world leader to show off his ”hunting” prowess by shooting a booze-addled tame bear, it was claimed on Thursday. The monarch allegedly gunned down the tipsy bear after it was released into his path by handlers.

"Today, the overriding importance of media and information has made the pen — or at least the computer — perhaps the most powerful weapon of all," writes Zwelinzima Vavi. South African journalists defend the current capitalist economic system as logical and good, and strive to ensure its survival.

Pearlie Joubert spoke to Patricia de Lille in a week that the Independent Democrats did a political about-turn, coming out in support of the Democratic Alliance’s Cape Town mayor and apologising for voting with the African National Congress in March this year.

The Baker report on an exit strategy from Iraq, leaked this week in the United States, is as sensible as it is sensational. It rejects ”staying the course” as no longer plausible and purports to seek alternatives to just ”cutting and running”. Stripped of political sweetening, it concludes that there is none.

Following on the assessment of six potential South African presidential candidates in August, the Mail & Guardian looks at two more candidates who are quietly entering the political arena from the periphery.