On the 30th of April this year, television talk-show person Noeleen Maholwana-Sangqu said something so startlingly unfortunate that it was worth writing down. Her guest that afternoon was Patrick Holford, international bowel-whisperer, and as the curtain lifted, it seemed that for once Noeleen had come prepared; for there on her lap was Holford’s latest paperback treatise on the private life of starch.

Despite being publicly lambasted by President Thabo Mbeki, a professor at Groote Schuur hospital is standing by his claims that racial quotas have had a damaging effect on specialist staffing at Western Cape hospitals. And another doctor, who says he is emigrating to Australia because he has hit a career ceiling, has also come forward to point out the omissions in Mbeki’s facts.

The private Nelspruit Medi-Clinic has admitted more than 100 public patients for treatment since the strike began — and the government will pay at least some of the heavy costs of private treatment. ”We recognise that there will be emergency admissions from public to private hospitals,” said Nelspruit Medi-Clinic operations director Koert Pretorius.

In 2001/02 state employees received below-inflation pay hikes. But, in the past four years, hikes have been above inflation, though the nominal increase fell from 8,5% in 2003 to 5,3% last year. In addition, working in the public sector is much less lucrative than in the private sector. The median wage for workers with tertiary degrees in the private sector is R8 000. In the public sector it is R6 000.

South African Communist Party treasurer general Phillip Dexter has warned that a culture of ”revisionism, opportunism, ideological incoherence and factionalism” is consuming the party at the expense of its historical role as a leader of South Africa’s working class. In a hard-hitting paper Dexter writes: ”The party cannot claim to be the vanguard in the revolution when some in it are seen to compromise with and pander to tribalism.”

It’s 2pm and 16 degrees Celsius. Council workers in green overalls are side by side, unravelling rolls of kikuyu grass on to recently flattened earth. They are involved with what Johannesburg City Parks (JCP) — reality-show style — terms an ”X-treme park makeover” in Wilgeheuwel, near Roodepoort on Johannesburg’s West Rand. The 24-hour makeover is aimed at creating fanfare about the environment.

Police crowd control methods have again come under the spotlight during the public service strike, with a senior Western Cape trade unionist alleging that police personnel ”have used more violence against strikers than during apartheid”. However, Nehawu provincial secretary Suraya Jawoodeen also conceded that union leaders were battling with increasing worker violence during strike action.