Lesedi Mabiletja, appointed as chief of staff to the minister of social development at the age of 22 and without the necessary qualifications, has resigned.

In this episode of the Readiness Report, Redi Tlhabi traces a familiar and dangerous pattern in modern leadership: paranoia as power. From Silvio Berlusconi to Jacob Zuma to Donald Trump, she unpacks how leaders who see criticism as personal attack begin to govern through grievance, blurring the line between policy and vendetta, statecraft and self-image. Tlhabi argues that when leadership...

Former police watchdog head Robert McBride has spoken in Parliament about several political scandals, including how a former head of the Hawks was allegedly targeted for giving the thumbs-up to an investigation into renovations previously made at former president Jacob Zuma’s residence.

Nigerians are grappling with rising inflation, particularly in food prices, driven by subsidy cuts. President Bola Tinubu’s government hopes that such measures will improve the situation in the long term.

The 350 basis point gap between the repo or monetary policy rate and the prime rate has been fixed since 2001. Lenders use it as a baseline depending on the risks and the credit record of borrowers.

Countering violent extremism must be reframed as a governance renewal project — investing in accountable institutions, empowering civil society as an early warning system, institutionalising interfaith and intercultural dialogue, protecting media freedom and addressing structural exclusion.

A conversation with a man proud to be a fisherman, but who is watching the profession slip away from his community, posing problems of survival.

Eight countries across the Middle East and Asia have announced plans to join United States President Donald Trump’s so-called “board of peace” in the Gaza Strip, stressing the need to secure a “permanent ceasefire” in the bombarded Palestinian enclave.

Sheila Kohler’s novel The House on R Street (first published in 1994, and republished in 2025 by Open Road, New York) tells a terrifying coming-of-age tale in 1920s Johannesburg. A New York publishing house is republishing it as part of a mission to bring ‘great literary works back to life’.

About a week ago, Independent Development Trust head Tebogo Malaka resigned before a disciplinary hearing linked to a Daily Maverick video showing her and a spokesperson allegedly offering a cash bribe to a journalist. Now, a police investigation into this scandal is being finalised.

It’s been over a year since the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Act was signed into law, making Grade R compulsory for five-year-olds in SA from 2025. However, as a new school year gets under way, questions about the implementation of the legislation remain, from how it’s being funded to who it affects.

A forensic investigation has found that the National Lotteries Commission should recover hundreds of thousands of rand from ProEthics, a company it paid to advise on ethics, after uncovering irregular fees, over-invoicing and missing receipts. ProEthics and its director Dr Janette Minnaar tried to stop GroundUp publishing this article.

Springbok assistant coach Tony Brown has distanced himself from speculation that he will join the All Blacks’ staff, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

What these numbers document is not conservation under pressure, but extraction at scale. They expose trophy hunting not as a people-centred conservation model, but as a market-driven industry serving a narrow, global elite.

The board of South African National Parks, which oversees some of the world’s premier nature reserves, will consider whether to change its corporate structure to allow it to borrow directly from capital markets and retain more of its earnings.

In a rambling address at the World Economic Forum, US President Donald Trump doubled down on acquiring Greenland, threatened political rivals and donned the mantle of a misguided energy expert to attack the ‘green new scam’.

President Donald Trump demanded immediate talks on acquiring Greenland in a hardline speech at Davos on Wednesday, but said that while the United States possessed “unstoppable force”, it would not use it to take the Arctic island from Denmark.