Staff Reporter

Last Monday, the Constitutional Court handed down judgement in the case of Ethel Robinson and dealt a blow to the 2,3-million South Africans who described themselves as life partners in the most recent census. Robinson was in a monogamous life partnership for 15 years and sought to claim maintenance from her deceased partner’s estate.

Pity business owners, especially agricultural. On top of all their woes, they are being asked to contribute to the national effort to reduce unemployment. The free market, driven by competition, is by and large the only way goods and services can be efficiently made and distributed. The agricultural sector faces a difficult balancing act in unpredictable markets.

It’s always a tough question to answer: What exactly do you do, the day after a wild party, when you have drunken and unconscious friends lying around your place? Do you leave them alone and let them sleep it off? Or do you take advantage of the fact that they are unconscious, to play with them, decorate them and make them look stupid — and then take pictures to show everyone on the internet?

In the play <i>Julius Caesar</i>, the character Mark Antony says in his funeral oration: "The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Caesar." It is impossible to travel through Africa without wondering about what evils have been interred with the bones of its many defunct despots — and what good they might possibly have left behind.

"The 20th century was the bloodiest in history. It will be remembered for the millions of innocent children, women and men who needlessly perished in war." Richard Goldstone urges African members of the ICC not to allow the United States to delay justice to the victims in Darfur.

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/197779/special_rep_icon_template.gif" align=left>Naledi Pandor and Lindiwe Sisulu wore broad grins during Wednesday’s Budget speech, as Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel repeatedly turned towards their seats on Parliament’s front benches to announce new funding for projects that put education and housing at the heart of the government’s social development plans.

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/197779/special_rep_icon_template.gif" align=left>"We must all work together to pull the wagon through the drift," Trevor Manuel said in every official language but English on Wednesday. And he is using all the room available in the Constitution to ensure that local and provincial governments get their shoulders to the wheel. His balancing act was eased by a larger-than-expected tax overrun.

The tender process for building schools is "a system designed for corruption", senior education officials say. But plans mooted by Minister of Education Naledi Pandor to short-circuit graft and waste by relieving provincial public works departments of responsibility for construction tenders have irritated national Minister of Public Works Stella Sigcau.

Two apparently unrelated pieces of news came up last week. In one of these, much was being made about the extravagant parties and celebrations that have become a regular feature of political life these days. The day after his State of the Nation address, President Thabo Mbeki threw a celebratory lunch-time banquet for no less than 1 500 guests.

Schabir Shaik’s defence is hanging by a thread — albeit a substantial thread named Jacob Zuma. As Shaik began testifying in his defence in the fraud and corruption trial in Durban this week, it became increasingly clear that crucial aspects of his evidence rely on Deputy President Jacob Zuma for corroboration.

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/197779/special_rep_icon_template.gif" align=left>South African economists have reacted positively to Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s Budget speech delivered on Wednesday, saying they were surprised by the 1% cut in corporate tax, but that it was a "stimulus is in the right place". Dawie Roodt from the Efficient Group said the government had shown itself to have "real guts".

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/197779/special_rep_icon_template.gif" align=left>South African Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni says that most South Africans don’t remember interest rates being as low as they are at present. He said that interest rates had been lowered "most definitely because inflation has come down."

Egyptian doctors have successfully operated on a two-headed baby, removing the second head and neck to leave a normal baby girl after the successful operation, surgeons said on Saturday. "The operation lasted 15 hours and it was a complete success," said hospital director Nazif Hefnawi, in the delta governorate of Banha.

A mystery man in a surgical mask and cap bought the most expensive car licence plate sold in Hong Kong since 1997, paying HK$7,1-million (about R5,3-million), a Hong Kong newspaper said on Monday. The winner bought the plate number 12 — which sounds like "certainly easy" in Cantonese.

The response by the editor of <i>The Economist</i>, Bill Emmott, to criticism levelled against the publication in the African National Congress’s newsletter recently is an interesting illustration of how the media can claim to provide balanced (sometimes even called "objective") coverage of issues while still setting a particular agenda.