Katharine Viner meets Susan Faludi, the writer who has taken on the problems of men without betraying feminism Seven years is a long time to spend obsessing over men. Seven years, for anyone, is a long time to spend talking to football fans, porn actors, war veterans, film stars, astronauts, shipbuilders, fundamentalist Christians, gang members, […]

Heather Hogan Police from the Middelburg police station in Mpumalanga were so determined to stop escapes from its holding cells that they decided to take action themselves. With the help of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Middelburg and other police stations have implemented a new cell management programme that has not only […]

David le Page What’s New Intel and United States design company Sozo have launched the first item of PC furniture, probably destined to join the Sinclair C5 electric car and the calculator watch on the dust heap of tech history. It is a pouf, or “Ottoman footstool”, with a built-in PC, which gives you the […]

Howard Barrell Over a Barrel There is no prize for recognising that our civil service is overstaffed, underskilled and unfocused. The government, at any rate, would not reward you for the insight. The challenge we face is how to reform, even rebuild, the civil service into something that can both deliver quality services and become […]

Barry Streek Parliament’s portfolio committee on finance is to hold hearings next month on tax reforms which could benefit the NGO sector as well as art galleries and museums. If the reforms – proposed by the Katz commission – are supported by the committee and government, non-profit organisations will be given tax benefits, including exemptions […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | day 4.00pm. THE stability of South Africa’s financial system is to be assessed by a team from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Business Day newspaper on Friday quoted Reserve Bank deputy governor Gill Marcus as saying South Africa had volunteered to be part of a pilot project, which […]

Peter Dickson Five of the most vulnerable people in the Eastern Cape have now died since the withdrawal by the Department of Welfare of their disability and care-dependence grants in line with the new government policy that ironically seeks the social and economic upliftment of the disabled. The latest victim was an epileptic and mentally […]

Sergeant at the Bar When the dust finally settled on Minister of Justice Penuell Maduna’s speech, one comment emerged as being of far greater importance than the criticism of Judge Richard Goldstone and Judge Johann Kriegler’s extra-judicial duties. Maduna was reported as saying that there had never been a culture of management in the Department […]

Ebrahim Harvey Crossfire The truth was the biggest casualty in the exchange between Howard Barrell’s column (Over a Barrel, August 27 to September 2), in which he attacked South African Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande’s anti-privatisation views, and the SACP deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin’s Crossfire reply (“Should we let Barrell’s claptrap go?”, September […]

Review of the week Stephen Gray Just for starters, this is a very fine show. It deserves to run forever … Here are some reasons for arriving at such an opinion. The first is that A Touch of Madness is taken from the writings of Herman Charles Bosman and, although some of the items are […]