The gaggle of girls who hung about outside the restaurant were pitiful in their disconsolate finery. Miniscule black cocktail dresses ballooned like tiny soft-porn spinnakers up their toothpick thighs in the Cape Town gale, and when no one was watching, beautifully manicured hands rubbed concentration-camp elbows and shoulders in a vain attempt to keep warm.

Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool’s bid to change the racial balance of his department could be scuppered if a dispute over 10 posts is not resolved by next Friday. A date hasn’t been set for arbitration between the provincial administration and trade unions, the Public Servants Association and Hospersa.

The Gautrain Rapid Rail Link still faces stiff opposition from within the government as its true costs emerge. The train sailed through one obstacle this week when a court challenge to the structure of the empowerment component in Bombela, the preferred bidder to build and operate the train, was thrown out.

Massively increased levels of public investment lie at the heart of Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s plans for accelerated and shared economic growth. But its ambitious 6% target for economic growth has been scaled back to 4,5%, at least for the next five years. The 6% growth mark is seen as being attainable only between 2010 and 2014.

Ten years ago, 300 people from around the world assembled in the Universal Hall at Findhorn, the veteran green community on the Morayshire coast in Scotland, to launch the Global Eco-village Network. This month, they and others came back to celebrate a movement that is growing rapidly and spreading expertise on sustainability, communal living and post-modern spirituality around the world.