The ANC likes to boast that it’s a broad church, which means encompassing diverse views. When it comes to crunch time and you’re an ANC parliamentarian, however, your party needs to rule supreme over your conscience. That’s just how it is, as Professor Ben Turok and Gloria Borman discovered after refusing to vote for the ANC’s Protection of State Information Bill. Or is it? By SIPHO HLONGWANE.

The DA is planning to march to Cosatu House on 15 May and Zwelinzima Vavi says he’ll have his members there ready to meet them. It’s a dream come true for the ANC: the tension between its two most vocal critics is escalating into a possible outright war. By GREG NICOLSON.

Following the death of the former minister of co-operative governance and traditional affairs, Sicelo Shiceka, glowing tributes flowed, masking the disgrace in which he was immersed in the latter part of his life. RANJENI MUNUSAMY argues that this kind of obfuscation damages the ANC’s history and denigrates its proud succession of heroes.

The Indian president Patil arrived in South Africa on Tuesday amid a growing controversy over her frequent travels. She defended her hefty bills by pointing out that many of her trips resulted from invitations, as was the case with South Africa. But our president wasn’t out to impress her as much as the sizeable business delegation she lugged along. By KHADIJA PATEL.

It’s only the third day of campaigning in Egypt, and already 20 people are dead. But death tolls have a horrible habit of rising, as Egypt well knows after over a year of revolutionary and post-revolutionary turbulence.It’s an ominous sign that, though Hosni Mubarak is gone, his tactics have not been forgotten. The revolution still has some way to go. By SIMON ALLISON.

The Gauteng police boss finally showed some face on Wednesday when he addressed the National Press Club. He talked about what he and his blue army were doing to combat crime in South Africa’s most populous province. He also spoke about the small matters of corruption and political interference. By SIPHO HLONGWANE.

The narrative of events leading to the suspension of the NPA’s Glynnis Breytenbach is scary stuff. Now it’s emerged someone has also been trying to intimidate the prosecutor who refused to drop charges against Richard Mdluli. She’s planning to fight and SA’s culture of impunity is back in the spotlight. By GREG NICOLSON.

Gauteng's e-tolling project may be on hold, but, as CHRIS GIBBONS reports, close similarities to the Arms Deal mean it shouldn’t be left there.

The prime minister of Israel’s father has died in Jerusalem. He was one of the most influential hard-right Zionists in the country’s history. If his son has been accused of believing nothing, then he believed everything – everything bleak. By RICHARD POPLAK.

On Thursday, relations between the US and China will be severely tested when secretary of state Hillary Clinton and treasury secretary Timothy Geithner meet their counterparts in Beijing. They certainly have much to talk about, but it is the fate of the blind Chinese human rights lawyer that might dominate the whole party. By J BROOKS SPECTOR.

Despite the mutually beneficial relationship the two countries have, there is much tension between them. This is because Egypt is changing and Saudi Arabia isn’t. In fact, it’s being the usual bully on the block in terms of human rights, labour relations and elitist arrogance. By KHADIJA PATEL.

Against the backdrop of a shameful fall in South Africa’s media freedom rating worldwide, the report of the Press Freedom Commission – the second media freedom review process following the ANC’s calls for a media appeals tribunal – was published last week. JULIE REID takes a satellite view of processes, perspectives and possibilities.

A South African citizen has been kidnapped by the Sudanese army. Our government is outraged, but what of the ANC? Far from condemning the abduction, the ruling party is making nice with Sudan’s ruling party, promising to share its experience of democracy and “good governance”. SIMON ALLISON probes what Sudan’s ruling party – the fig leaf of a dictatorial regime – might share with the ANC.

At a Workers’ Day rally organised by the Democratic Alliance in Midvaal, party boss Helen Zille laid the blame for South Africa’s continued unemployment disaster squarely at the feet of Cosatu. That this speech happened right there is not insignificant – the Midvaal municipality is blue, and there is nothing the ANC can do. By SIPHO HLONGWANE.

British MPs sitting on a special committee to investigate wrongdoing into Rupert Murdoch’s News International have just released a report that pulls no punches. You don’t have to read too hard between the lines to figure out what they’re trying to say. By REBECCA DAVIS.

Ahead of the ruling party’s elective conference in December, Cosatu's open unhappiness with its ruling partners has increasingly being interpreted as a split in the alliance. Not so surprising, then, that ANC leaders used Workers’ Day celebrations to call for unity. Cosatu leaders returned the favour by saving their attacks for the DA. By GREG NICOLSON.

In this week’s May Day celebrations as well as in the face-off with government over labour brokers and e-tolling, Cosatu is flexing its muscles. The labour federation seems to have a serious case of buyer’s remorse over the Zuma presidency and has decided not to back him – or anyone else – for the ANC presidency. This has serious implications for the Mangaung conference, writes RANJENI MUNUSAMY.

The week that was(n't) in beloved South Africa. Seriously. By JOHN VLISMAS & DUNCAN HARLING.

Robinson established TransAfrica in 1977 and received one of the country’s highest decorations on Freedom Day. Robinson and TransAfrica were at the forefront of citizen efforts in the US to end apartheid, but also persisted against authoritarian regimes like Ethiopia and in support of the pro-democracy movement for Haiti. J Brooks Spector spoke to Robinson about his life’s work after his arrival in South Africa.

During a sideline conversation in court, an advocate in the e-tolling case mentioned that Judge Bill Prinsloo was gaining a reputation for being the “underdog judge”. On Saturday, he didn’t disappoint. ALEX ELISEEV unpacks a decision to halt “the most contentious project since the arms deal”.

Hollywood’s most imaginative could not have contrived as outrageous a plot as Gauteng’s e-toll debacle … and a bigger communication and PR stuff up could not have been made. ALEX ELISEEV takes a stunned look.

The DA entered the April by-elections with a good chance of losing up to three wards – one a very important strategic outpost. It did well to defend all three wards successfully and even gained a toehold in a couple of ANC strongholds. By PAUL BERKOWITZ.

Normally, when law and emotion meet in a courtroom, emotion limps away with a black eye and bruised ego. But yesterday’s urgency ruling during a legal bid to stop Gauteng’s e-tolling spoke volumes about the importance of public resistance and the temperature of its anger. And if all goes well, a decision on whether the interdict will be granted is expected on Thursday. By ALEX ELISEEV.
 

The wonks are calling it the worst economic recovery in Britain for a century. (Remember Churchill’s return to the Gold Standard? Neither do we.) So, Old Blighty is officially in the recession we all unofficially knew it was in. Cue market turmoil and “uncertainty”. And a loud case of the “duhs”. By RICHARD POPLAK.

Now that the president has ensured a palace coup is extremely unlikely, he may feel entitled to rest in the knowledge that Mangaung has been won. But it hasn’t. He needs to find that pre-Polokwane “people’s president” buried deep within. He needs to hit the campaign trail. It’s time to win the branches over. Here’s some advice from our shadow campaign manager, SIPHO HLONGWANE.

If you are happily waving Julius goodbye, beware, says CHRIS GIBBONS, you never know what might come back. You could be unpleasantly surprised.

In most presidential election calendars, a single day when New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania all hold their primaries would be a big news day for an election campaign. But with Mitt Romney all but proclaimed his party’s nominee, he chose to return to New Hampshire to give his first big-picture speech in the next phase of the campaign. J BROOKS SPECTOR looks in.

As tensions escalate, war in the Sudans looks inevitable. In fact, Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir already thinks so. Not that he minds too much, judging by his belligerent attitude as he addressed his troops. After all, violence has always been the panacea to all his problems, and right now he’s got all sorts of problems. By SIMON ALLISON.

Compared to the Belgians in the Congo, the British were relatively benign imperialists in Africa, right? Wrong. They were just better at destroying the evidence. A story that went spectacularly unreported in the British press last week reveals how. By KEVIN BLOOM.