The jury is out on whether the New National Party will be around in any significant form to celebrate its centenary in 2014. Next month the party will trek to Stellenbosch to kick off its election campaign. The 2004 poll will decide whether the NNP’s politics of consensus finds favour with voters.

National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka declined to shake the hand of Mo Shaik at a toilet in Bloemfontein last year — but Ngcuka says he is now prepared to forgive all if they apologise. Ngcuka spoke this week in response to the release of the Hefer commission findings, which cleared him of allegations that he was a spy.

As the countrywide strike of baggage handlers enters its sixth week, disturbing questions about the fallout of privatisation for workers have refocused union attitudes towards the sale of state assets. Unionists say the dispute between airport workers and their employer illustrates their point that deregulation and privatisation lead to retrenchments.

An internal probe into the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the government body responsible for air safety, has uncovered a sorry tale of financial mismanagement, inefficiency and sheer management incompetence. The CAA, funded largely from the public purse, has been dogged by a series of scandals.

Zimbabwe’s popular independent <i>Daily News</i> — a fierce critic of the government — hit the stands for a second day on Friday, four months after being forcibly shut down by authorities who have renewed moves to gag it again. Like the previous day, the daily was snapped up by curious readers.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=30019">Zim govt seeks to gag Daily News</a>

Take a prominent figure in a hotel room with a young female activist, a condom and an injured husband, add the backdrop of a social-values conference on foreign soil — and you have the ingredients of a juicily gripping scandal.