President Zuma is in Davos with two senior economics ministers, Rob Davies and Ebrahim Patel. A greater deterrent to investment is hard to imagine, which is why no-one is taking Zuma seriously anymore.

Mail & Guardian reports that axed finance minister Nhlanhla Nene had refused to buckle to pressure from SAA chairwoman Dudu Myeni and Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir - wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes - to open a new air route between SA and Khartoum.

Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi's call for a ban on smoking in all public places is an assault on freedom and civil liberties. Whether you are a smoker or not, this attack on tobacco (which is not illegal) affects you and your liberties.

The SA Democratic Union (SADTU) gets a free pass for selling teaching posts for R30,000 a pop in a country innured to such outrages. It is a symptom of the decay that has infested the extractive sectors that feed off the labours of others, writes Cilliers Brink of the Institute of Race Relations.

It is not too late for opposition parties to bring an application before the Constitutional Court challenging the suitability of Jacob Zuma to hold the office of president, says Paul Hoffman of Accountability Now. Zuma has demonstrated irrationality in transfering his finance minister and is fatally compromised as president.

Nkosana Makate has waged a 16 year battle to get what he argues is his rightful reward for inventing the Please Call Me service while an employee at Vodacom, which has a different view of how the servuce came about. Now the case is about to be decided by the Constitutional Court.

John Kane-Berman of the Institute of Race Relations offers some advice on how to get SA back on the rails again. First of all we need to figure out who runs the country: is it cabinet, President Zuma, the ratings agencies or the financial markets? Right now, it looks like no-one is in charge. 

Temba A. Nolutshungu of the Free Market Foundation argues that affirmative action is one of the biggest frauds perpetrated against South Africans in the post-apartheid era. In this article, he looks at how affirmative action has retarded the progress of the supposed beneficiaries in the US, Malaysia and elsewhere.

Everywhere news is screaming to us that things are bad and getting worse - from education standards to health, business and politics. While not everything is rosy, Free Market Foundation's executive dirtector Leon Louw points out some facts that suggest things are not as bad as they might seem.

The dagga trial gets underway in March this year, and it should be a trip! On the one side is the Dagga Party of SA, led by Jeremy Acton, and on the other the state. The Dagga Party argues that SA is out of touch with the latest research findings and the trend towards decriminalisation of the world's favourite plant.

If you want to stop being victimised by financial terrorists, stop using their currencies, says Charles Hugh-Smith. History is not on the side of the financial aristoracy who, like their Roman forbearers, are destined for wipe-out within the next 10 years. 

Dr Michael Burry is the inspiration behind the blockbuster movie The Big Short. If he could predict the market crash of 2008, why couldn't the government and the Federal Reserve? When he asked these questions publically in 2010, he was investigated by the tax authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

As the rand breached R16 to the US dollar and overseas traders calling the rand a one way bet to R18 or even R20, it's clear South Africa can no longer afford its president and his capricious style of rule. His firing of finance minister Nhlanhla Nene may be the last straw.

President Zuma fired finance minister and the rand slipped past R15 to the US dollar. What else could possibly go wrong? All bets are off at this stage, but a yearend shock for the rand - as if R15 to the US dollar is not enough of a shock - is certainly now on the table.

Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has morphed into something more oppressive than even the original architects of affirmative action could have imagined. In this book, BEE: Helping or Hurting, author Anthea Jeffery dissects some of the crazy laws being shaped under the umbrella of BEE.

Higher education minister Blade Nzimande wants to overhaul the Sector Education and Training Authorities (Setas) and grab most of the R13 billion collected each year by way of the National Skills Levy. Some are calling this a bold attempt by the minister to nationalise the country's training.

Stories of mass evictions were common during the apartheid years. It's happening again, this time at the behest of the banks, but the victims are of every race, including the poorest of the poor. One human rights group has decided to fight back. 

Higher education minister Blade Nzimande has proposed the effective nationalisation of skills training. He also founded a trust that received millions from Sector Education Training Authorities (Setas) that fall under his purview, though he denies any conflict of interest. 

The nanny state is at it again. Now health minister Aaron Motsoaledi wants to ban smoking in public places altogether. The Free Market Foundation calls this an assault on basic freedoms and property rights.

It's time to call out the loons who want to scare us all with their stories of man-made climate change being responsible for the current drought. As Andrew Kenny points out in this article, we should welcome increased CO2 levels as beneficial for plant life. 

As US President Barack Obama wages his seventh war against the Muslim world after winning his Nobel Peace Prize, journalist John Pilger reminds us that the outrages committed by ISIS can only be understood by an examination of the history of Western governments and their intelligence agencies in spreading violence and terror.

Higher education minister Blade Nzimande has gazetted sweeping proposals to scrap sector education and training authorities that receive R13 billion a year from the skills levies. Expect a major fight-back from the Setas and companies which stand to lose billions in levy refunds.

Eastern Cape ostrich farmer Ash Davenport, who was the first South Africa to present a securitisation audit in front of a court, lost his case in the Eastern Cape High Court to stop his farm being sold in execution. But he has a second audit proving beyond any doubt that Standard Bank no longer owns his loan.   

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