In the year 2006, a fully functioning province in a modern, first-world country was brought to its knees by massive breakdowns in its electricity supplies. Emergency services were rendered helpless, hospitals were unable to perform life-saving surgery, other vital medical procedures had to be abandoned. Communications across the province were disrupted for more than a week.

Workers employed by two of Transnet’s business units want to become bosses. They want the units’ activities to be outsourced to them, or for the shares to be sold to worker cooperatives rather than to private companies. These two assets are at the heart of the festering dispute between the transport parastatal and four trade unions.

Google lost yet more of its shine this week after a senior executive admitted growth at the company was slowing. Shares in Google fell 13% in early trading on Wall Street after chief financial officer George Reyes told an investor conference in New York that ”growth will slow”, although he added: ”Will it be precipitous? I doubt it.”

The Democratic Alliance failed to regain most of the hinterland municipalities in the Western Cape it lost to the African National Congress through floor-crossing, despite its aggressive ”Take back your city” campaign. Instead, Patricia de Lille’s Independent Democrats emerged as potential queenmakers in several finely balanced rural municipalities.