For a university leader who has just weathered yet another eruption of torrid student protests against fee increases, Wits vice-­chancellor Loyiso Nongxa was exuding an impressive degree of serenity and confidence this week. These qualities in the softly spoken mathematician were so noticeable that the Mail & Guardian was moved to ask him what he does to relax.

Billions of rands of public funds are floating around in government departments with no one knowing what the money is being spent on or whether it is being spent at all. This has been the outcome of another round of financial reports prepared by Auditor General Terence Nombembe, which form part of the annual reports that departments are obliged to submit to Parliament.

Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla has asked the National Prosecuting Authority to reinstate its former deputy director and convicted fraudster Cornwell Tshavhungwa, in an apparent move to reassert her authority over the institution. Tshavhungwa was fired by the NPA in December 2004, after being charged with fraud and corruption in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court

At a time when there is more chance of being abused by one’s own party members than by the opposition, the cordon of police officers tramping through Beauty Mdlolo’s sodden front yard in Estcourt’s Wembezi township seems inappropriately excessive. It is day two of Thabo Mbeki’s presidential imbizo in the uThukela District Municipality in western KwaZulu-Natal.

The trail began when a dog was found wandering around Shayamoya township outside Umzinto on KwaZulu-Natal’s south coast in early September. It had the head of a woman clamped in its jaws. This has led to the gruesome discovery of the decomposing bodies of nine young women and the exhumation of a tenth in Majola in the Eastern Cape.

Senior advocates are said to have discussed organising the Bar to boycott the Supreme Court while Cape Judge President John Hlophe remains in office, as demands for Hlophe’s removal continue to mount in legal and academic circles.

One of the ANC’s historically powerful provinces, Gauteng, goes to Polokwane with diminished voting power after failed efforts to grow the party from where it was five years ago. Gauteng will be taking fewer delegates to the conference than it did in 2002, when the ANC held its elective conference in Stellenbosch.

The IFP goes to its 32nd annual general conference on Saturday to take stock of its declining fortunes and formulate a turnaround strategy to wrest back control of KwaZulu-Natal in the 2009 general elections. The conference is important for party president Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who is battling to stifle debate over the succession debacle in his party amid hushed calls by reformists in the youth wing.

A top legal academic has dismissed as ”a red herring” suggestions that suspended National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Vusi Pikoli has jeopardised South Africa’s national security interests by indemnifying and plea-bargaining with criminals in exchange for their testimony.

Zehir Omar, the lawyer acting for Khalid Rashid, has applied for leave to appeal to Pretoria’s High Court. Rashid is the Pakistani whose disappearance in 2005 initiated court proceedings challenging the government’s claim that it did not facilitate an extraordinary rendition as part of the ”war on terror”. Minister of Home Affairs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula claimed to have deported Rashid in the normal course of business.