Puzzled readers of Independent Newspaper titles may wonder why they’re being treated to front-page stories about capsized cruisers on the Yangtze River.  Ed Herbst joins the dots.

Helen Zille wrote an open letter to Iqbal Survé, owner of the Sekunjalo Independent Media newspapers, on 18 January in 2015, saying: “Conducted in parallel with the extremely dangerous phenomenon of ‘state capture’, the process of consolidating our democracy is endangered by ‘media capture’ and the incremental obliteration of critical voices.”

Case will be important test for country’s media freedom.

A Namibian lawyer has filed a libel suit against the country’s largest daily newspaper over Panama Papers-related stories that linked the lawyer to companies used by Sicilian Mafia kingpin Vito Palazzolo, who was long a resident in South Africa.

Fierce rules, tough fines and a ferocious code of conduct keep the residents of this Gauteng paradise in order, while their tranquil way of life is under threat from all sides.

Joburg’s best-kept secret lies with only the N3 and the teeming township of Alexandra separating it from the hustle and bustle of Sandton City. Yet in the rarified time warp that is the “virtually crime free” Thornhill Estate the clock is kept firmly back: old tin-roofed houses set solidly on enormous tree-laden stands, numerous parks and public gardens, a stream and ponds with tadpoles and frogs, lakes and 1,600 open hectares along the boundary.

City saviour who wrote the book on ANC-looting of Nelson Mandela Bay Metro actually helped the theft.

The man who wrote the widely acclaimed exposé of ANC corruption, How to Steal a City: The Battle for Nelson Mandela Bay, Crispian Olver, it emerges, opened the way to a final multi-million-rand heist from the city’s coffers in the run up to the 2016 local government elections.

Olver, was “parachuted” into the metro administration in late 2015 by then Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Pravin Gordhan.

Prospective DA head of the Western Cape government, Alan Winde, has launched nearly a dozen businesses, but says that running a province is going to be his greatest entrepreneurial challenge so far.

Alan Winde has done quite a few things in his life – including starting and running at least ten businesses – before entering politics. But now, since being named the DA’s candidate for Premier of the Western Cape, he faces possibly his biggest challenge ever.

“If I become premier, it will be the biggest company I’ve ever run: a R65-billion company with seven million customers. That’s the province. And there are lots and lots of issues besides jobs that face society,” said Winde.