Fikile Ntsikelelo Moya

Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana will be expected to chart the way forward for the skills sector at the third annual National Skills Conference in Midrand this month, while ensuring that the promises and goals made by the government remain on track.

Despite the spate of management crises facing some of the sector education and training authorities (Setas), South Africa is winning the battle to address skills shortages in the country.

The latest police report on crime in South Africa shows the police battling against crimes embedded in the "social fabric" For instance, 50% to 80% of the 1 000 crimes reported per week take place between people who know each other. In many rape cases, the report said, the complainant and perpetrator had been drinking together.

Imagine if Nigerian Amina Lawal had used contraceptives, would she still be in the media’s glare as an example of how women continue to be maligned in the 21st century? Chances are she would not, because there would be no "proof" that she had had sex outside the boundaries accepted by the moral powers-that-be.

Area commissioner for Soweto Nkanyiso Maphanga last week told the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> that the police are investigating allegations that Dobsonville gangster Bhekizitha Nxumalo (20), who is better known as "Nkwenkwe", was supplied with a police-issue bullet-proof vest and ammunition by corrupt police members.

Vodacom, SABMiller, First National Bank, Supersport, BMW and Anglo American are some of the 17 national and transnational companies that have thrown their weight and cash behind the effort to bring the World Cup to South Africa. An estimated 129 000 jobs will be created — granted that some will be temporary.

South African football fans can be very unforgiving. They expect a Bafana Bafana coach to be able to train the team up to qualify for the World Cup, not to mention win the Africa Cup of Nations. But as South Africa grows progressively hopeful of winning the bid to host the 2010 World Cup Games, it may be a good time to reflect how far we have come.

A flagship housing project for the poor, for which a former subsidiary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions’s (Cosatu) investment arm was responsible, has been brought to the brink of collapse amid accusations of mismanagement and financial misdemeanours.

One of the first English signs one encounters on arrival at Yaounde airport in Cameroon reads: "Persons making inappropriate comments concerning hijacking, carriage of weapons or explosives or pose [sic] a threat against [sic] air transport will be prosecuted. Penalty: life imprisonment."

Just less than a year after the world debated how best to develop the planet in a sustainable way, Unisa announced that it will offer a master of laws (LLM) course in international law on sustainable development.

By the end of the week, the public will have an insight into the views of the notoriously reticent South African judiciary. Judges will no longer speak only through their judgements but will also participate in regular conferences.

The universe is fixated on Nelson Mandela because he is a man of the future and not the past.

For 26 years, June 16, now called Youth Day, has been associated with the effects of youthful exuberance. The youth of 1976 have a lot to be proud of for their role in dismantling apartheid, but their offspring have less reason to be enthusiastic.

In 1880 a leader of a Swazi secessionist group allowed a white businessman to settle on his group’s land. Forty-one years later the tenant had become the landowner and the former landlords were mere serfs.