This is why you should encourage your kids to cross their fingers behind their backs while placing their hands on their hearts and reciting the new Pledge of Allegiance: Size matters. It’s three times the length of the American one.

Shack dwellers in KwaZulu-Natal have set out to show that the provincial government acted unconstitutionally in promulgating its controversial anti-slums legislation in August last year. This was disclosed in papers filed in the Durban High Court by the Wits Law Clinic, acting on behalf of the shack dwellers’ movement.

The ANC in Parliament, backed by a civil society initiative that includes Cosatu, wants four of President Thabo Mbeki’s appointees to the SABC board to step down. They are lawyer Christine Qunta and businesspersons Peter Vundla (bottom), Gloria Serobe and Andile Mbeki.

An affidavit from acting prosecutions head Mokotedi Mpshe effectively blows apart government’s main charge against his suspended predecessor, Vusi Pikoli — that he had not kept his minister informed. President Thabo Mbeki suspended Pikoli last September.

Justice department Director General Menzi Simelane has emerged as a key player in the suspension of National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) boss Vusi Pikoli. Pikoli was expected to make his final submission to former speaker of Parliament Frene Ginwala’s commission of inquiry into his fitness to hold office on Friday.

The pathology services, the foundation of medical care and research, are under threat in Gauteng as the government laboratory services experience a haemorrhage of expert staff. Insiders say that over the past few months five of the country’s leading anatomical pathologists have resigned from the National Health Laboratory Services in the Gauteng region.

Uncertainty surround government’s proposals for merging the Scorpions with the police organised crime units — under South African Police Service control. Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula told Parliament on Tuesday: “The Scorpions will be dissolved and the organised crime unit of the police will be phased out and a new amalgamated unit will be created.”

Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula shafted President Thabo Mbeki’s careful plans for the Scorpions when he announced this week in Parliament that the unit would be dissolved. Nqakula also pre-empted a parliamentary process and might have acted unconstitutionally.

President Thabo Mbeki’s reference to land reform in his State of the Nation address has provoked cautious optimism among lobbyists, who are hoping South Africa’s policy in this regard might finally be on track. Ben Cousins, director of the University of the Western Cape’s Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, expressed some disappointment, saying Mbeki said “nothing new”.

Mbeki favours collective responsibility without accountability. He told Independent Newspapers after a weekend interview that he did not know of any failures in his Cabinet, even as he alluded to failures in handling electricity in last week’s state of the nation speech and the performance of setas (sector education and training authorities) during a television interview, writes Rapule Tabane/