I am snowed-in in the United States, and although it is initially quite exciting, the novelty begins to fade as the implications begin to sink in.

hard Scotch Tagwireyi South African universities are experiencing a dramatic fall in enrolment, with the viability of some campuses threatened by a drop of almost 30% in student intake between 1998 and 1999. Exceptions to this are the University of Pretoria and the University of Cape Town, both of which claim to have stable enrolment […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The report on taxi violence in Gauteng released this week catalogues extraordinary details of police officers in Pretoria joining forces with taxi assassins, even escorting them in police Casspirs. The report reveals details of how police officials leased government property, including firearms, bulletproof vests and police uniforms, to taxi associations for […]

Sarah Bullen Nerves of steel are no longer mandatory to fill in a medical aid application form if you are suffering from a chronic condition. Those polite questions inquiring about the state of your health can no longer serve as embedded red flags that will ensure your application lands neatly in the trash pile. The […]

The municipal demarcation process is being obfuscated by a misinformation campaign, writes Jubie Matlou The dispute that has erupted between the Municipal Demarcation Board and KwaZulu- Natal traditional leaders revolves around the role and powers of traditional leaders and the demarcation of traditional authority land under the municipal demarcation process. These two issues were the […]

Fight Club, starring Brad Pitt, is one of the most violent films ever made. It has shocked audiences, but director David Fincher feels misunderstood, writes Damon Wise There’s a scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden, the evil genius played by Brad Pitt, is working as a projectionist in a downtown multiplex. He’s working frantically, […]

Fiachra Gibbons Seamus Heaney, the Irish Nobel laureate, won the Whitbread book of the year award this week when his ancient warrior Beowulf slew the upstart young wizard Harry Potter. It is the fourth year in a row that a poet has won the 22E000 prize. Heaney’s translation of the ancient Anglo- Saxon epic poem […]

Lucretia Stewart Body Language `Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” was Professor Higgins’s bewildered complaint in My Fair Lady, as Eliza Doolittle led him a merry dance. How times have changed. Now men want to be more like women, sometimes even to be women. Failing that, the question today seems to be: […]

Telford Vice looks at the shenanigans behind the resignation of United Cricket Board president Ray White The covers were peeled off South African cricket at the weekend, and the cracks in the exposed surface were more than superficial. On Saturday, Ray White bowed to pressure from within and resigned as president of the United Cricket […]

Barry Streek The Minister of Education, Kader Asmal, has lodged a formal complaint with the Public Protector, Selby Baqwa, about endemic inertia in the government and suggested “massive tutoring” of state officials to make them more efficient. “Generally, my feeling is that there is a pervasive culture of delay in the government, largely inherited from […]