Sasco’s influence has been waning since the political order changed, reports Joshua Amupadhi South Africa’s biggest student body, the South African Students’ Congress (Sasco) is sliding in popularity just as it celebrates its fifth anniversary. Recent campus polls show Sasco is losing its grip on students’ representative councils (SRCs) — turf it had secured over […]

While central government and labour squabble over restructuring state assets and privatisation, local authorities are leading the way in contracting out municipal services to the private sector. As early as 1991, the Benoni Town Council started contracting out its fire and ambulance services to Fire and Emergency Service Holdings, while many townships are also privatising […]

Both the IMF and the World Bank are facing financial struggles, report Sarah Ryle and Alex Brummer Sarah Ryle in London assesses the World Bank’s efforts to maintain funding to the Third World THE World Bank has admitted that it is fighting a losing battle with Western governments over aid to the world’s poorest countries […]

Katy Bauer The sale of the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio Jacaranda, a snip at R70-million, was the bargain of the century. The winning bidders own a station which reaches five provinces and has as many listeners as the far more expensive Gauteng-based Highveld. Radio Jacaranda is stress-free wireless for a huge, fiercely loyal, largely […]

Andreas O’Shea The Mail & Gaurdian has acted as the forum for the beginnings of a much-needed debate on the legitimacy of the process of granting amnesty from criminal and civil liability to those that have carried out gross violations of human rights. The process was challenged by the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) in the […]

Without the appropriate investment incentives, foreign firms will not dash to develop Africa’s oil resources, reports Lynda Loxton Top oil industry representatives at this week’s Africa Upstream conference in Cape Town warned that Africa should not expect an “oil rush” unless African countries did a lot more to provide the kind of investment incentives and […]

Mungo Soggot ACADEMICS and legal professionals this week described Judge Hennie van Heerden as having an exceptional legal mind with an impressive track record on the bench. He has a low profile — several lawyers were unable to offer an opinion of him — but most of those who had had contact with him sung […]

The revelations that Swiss banks accepted Nazi gold show how history has become more a concatenation of symbols than a memory of experience, argues David Cesarani in London One of the intriguing questions arising from the latest “revelations” about the conduct of Swiss banks during and after World War II is why it took so […]

It should be said at the outset that the controversy which has developed over the appointment of South Africa’s chief justice does not involve great issues of principle. It is little more than a petty squabble, essentially over personalities. But it is nevertheless a damaging one for the judiciary. Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of […]

Alasdair Fotheringham explains why Miguel Indurain, five-time winner of the Tour de France, is riding in Spain this week against his will MOST Spaniards are loyal first to their family, second to their home town and only considered their country as an afterthought, said the writer and lover of Spain, Gerald Brenan. Had Brenan been […]