Hot or Not

• This Week

  Hot:

  City Press readers. This week, your newspaper won a clutch of awards at the Sikuvile ceremony. The awards were won for our work on finding the stories of the lives of the miners who died at Marikana and for our investigation into the splurging of R206 million on the president’s estate at Nkandla. Thank you for supporting City Press and our work.

  Not:

  Instructors at the Army Infantry School in Oudtshoorn, who were suspended this week after assaulting 10 recruits who sneaked out for a drink. The recruits were hit with broomsticks on their kidneys while they were forced to carry poles while naked. The military ombudsman is investigating the disgusting incident.

• Previous Weeks

  Hot:

  Gwede Mantashe. The ANC secretary-general called time this week on the cronyism and influence-peddling in South Africa that has been the practice of the entrepreneurial Gupta family for years now. Late on Tuesday night he said enough following reports of a chartered wedding jet landing at Waterkloof. He should blow the whistle more often.

  Not:

  Banana republics are places where the rule of law is a slippery thing that can be evaded by backhanders and the politically connected. Sometimes South Africa can feel like one when impunity rules, despite serious allegations of corruption. When a foreign jet landed sans permission and its passengers walked unchecked into Mzansi, we felt like one. It must not happen again.

• Previous Weeks

  Hot:

  Incidents of shack fires increase every winter. As reported in Daily Sun this week, four-year-old Spelele Mzizane of Katlehong, Ekurhuleni, became a hero when his family shack caught fire. The young boy woke his older sister, who in turn screamed for help to save a nine-year-old brother who was still trapped inside the house. A neighbour went into the house and saved him.

  Not:

  One can always count on conservative lobby group AfriForum for a good laugh – like painting themselves black. But their latest antic – of selling coffee at different prices for different races to mock affirmative action policies – smacks of a complete lack of historical context and ignorance of recent studies showing how well white people have been doing since 1994.

• Previous Weeks

  Hot:

  Smartphones. For the second time in the past two months, major human rights violations were recorded by a citizen on a smartphone. Last month, Mido Macia was dragged by a police van and tortured to death; and this week, Esther Mankge was brutally beaten. The only way we know about these incidents is because of amateur video footage taken on smartphones.

  Not:

  Tukwini Mandela (don’t worry, we hadn’t heard about her either) continued to heap opprobrium on her revered family name this week. The daughter of Makaziwe (last seen launching a wine label in Nelson Mandela’s name) wrote an open letter to 84-year-old George Bizos, accusing him of bringing the Mandela family name into disrepute. Pot. Kettle. Black.

• Previous Weeks

  Hot:

  Maggie Thatcher, the former British prime minister who died this week. Thatcher completely overhauled the British economy, yanking it into the 21st century. She knew that legacy industries had to end, she made the City a key node on a new global economy and reversed a three-decade long decline in Britain. Good leaders are not scared of tough decisions.

  Not:

  Maggie Thatcher, the former British prime minister who died this week. Thatcher was no friend of the trade unions and in mining towns across Britain, her death was celebrated. Milk snatcher Maggie, as she was called, withdrew rations of milk from school as she eroded the welfare state. Bad leaders are not humanists.