Free speech is under attack by an out-of-control government that seeks to monitor and regulate everything that moves (even sounds out of your mouth). Two of the most appalling pieces of proposed legislation to belly-flop before us are the Hate Speech bill - which makes it a criminal offence to jokingly insult a lawyer or a plumber - and the Information and Communications Technologies Policy white paper, which would create a semi-monpoly owned by the state with control over the radio frequency. 

The phrase "climate denier" has come to mean someone who refutes the facts of climate change brought about by humans. But as Scott Adams point out in this article, the climate science believers and deniers are actually talking about two different things. The subject has become so muddied by the word "science" that the term has lost its meaning. There may indeed be climate change - but don't expect science to solve this one.

This is how you end up thinking when you have been too long in a state-owned enterprise. The SA Broadcasting Corporation, faced with plummeting revenue, has proposed that it be allowed to charge license fees on all viewing devices, including your laptop, cell phone and tablet. This absurdity - from a corporation drowning in corruption and incompetence - must be stopped.

Why does South Africa keep embracing destructive policies when there is no shortage of proof that these policies will fail and spread poverty? Could it be that this is intentional, or that ideologues refuse to apprehend the lessons of history? Perhaps it is a bit of both. In this article, Temba Nolutshungu argues that we should heed the lessons of Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and China's Deng Xiaoping, all of whom espoused free markets and individual liberty.

Sean Naidoo‚ a business from Marburg near Port Shepstone‚ has accused the Department of Public Works of orchestrating the "first land grab in the new South Africa". This relates to a lease agreement in a building, occupied by the SA Police Services, owned by Naidoo. He locked the Department out of the building, claiming he has been under-paid in terms of the lease agreement. 

Be careful what you wish for. SA's opposition parties want Jacob Zuma dislodged as president, but keeping him in power for as long as possible may suit their electoral chances come 2019. The ANC members are having to read the weather vane: if Zuma goes then many jobs are on the line, but if he stays, party loyalists will be roasted for protecting a fatally compromised man. So long as Zuma remains in power, the opposition can mine his failing presidency for all it is worth, reminding voters for the next two years how seriously he has damaged this country. Bloomberg explores how this could play out.

Durban's King Shaka International is an airport in desperate search of passengers. Like most public sector projects of the last 10 years in SA, it ended up costing between two and three times the original estimates. But this one was a corker: it was foisted on Airports Company of SA (ACSA) by then minister of transport, Jeff Radebe, and has lumbered the organisation with crippling debt since then. This crass decision explains some of the other bizarre goings-on at ACSA in recent months. Minority shareholders in ACSA - who have been trying to sell their shares back to government (without success) at something approaching fair value - say the company has abandoned its commercial mandate and now operates as a development arm of government.

The Hate Speech Bill is a ridiculous attempt to protect 17 different categories of perceived victims from insult or injury. Of course, it does not pass the Constitutional test, but perhaps it is not intended to. It allows politicians to indulge their favourite pastime of race-baiting to distract from their own failings. Former Judge Rex van Schalkwyk explains what is going on. 

It is reckoned that 100,000 South Africans have lost their homes since the Constitution came into effect in 1995 – despite its guarantees of fair administrative justice and its supposed enforcement of property rights. This outrageous scandal has been enabled by insouciant judges and a court system that operates as the enforcement arm of the banks.

Several people, who have each lost large amounts of money due to Internet banking fraud, are taking their fight to ABSA and Standard Bank – with legal action on the cards. The victims say numerous banking staff members must have been involved. The evidence suggests the crooks knew exactly what funds were available in the victims' accounts, which accounts were linked, and from where money could be transferred. 

Tens of thousands of South Africans took to the streets in major cities across the country last week, calling for President Zuma's removal. This follows Zuma's dismissal of finance minister Pravin Gordhan as part of a cabinet reshuffle that resulted in SA's credit being downgraded the junk by credit ratings agencies. 

Michael Hudson is a former bank economist whose job it was to work out the balance of payments surplus of South American countries so the major banks could capture this surplus for themselves. In his new book J for Junk Economics, reviewed by Paul Craig Roberts, Hudson explains how banks have become the new "rentier class" that has displaced the feudal lords of old. They produce nothing, but capture rents in the form of interest that have no costs associated with them. 

The SA Communist Party, trade union federation Cosatu and leading ANC figures have called for President Zuma to resign following his firing of Pravin Gordhan as finance minister last week. This comes as S&P announced a credit-rating downgrade that left SA on junk status with a negative outlook. Zuma removed Gordhan using a bogus intelligence report to justify the move to ANC officials. He is now appealing to provincial ANC leaders to buttress his support, but the tide has turned against the president, who appears to have grossly misread the public outrage triggered by last week's cabinet reshuffle. 

Democracy cannot simply mean voting every five years. Participation is a crucial ingredient that breathes substance into the system. It also breathes legitimacy and longevity into the mandate the government receives every five years. Without the government ensuring meaningful participation, ours is a superficial democracy that, only on paper, is distinguishable from dictatorship.

International investor and author Doug Casey writes that the world is entering the Diamond Age, where nation states will disappear and groups of like-minded people will organise themselves into clans in pursuit of freedom and optimum survival. Far-fetched? Maybe. But the evidence of social atomisation is already visible all around us.

To hell with the rand, the ratings agencies, the people of South Africa. President Zuma is a desperate man with bills to pay trying to stay out of jail. His cabinet "reshuffle" has the fingerprints of the Guptas all over it. He sacked finance minister Pravin Gordhan and put a dandy in his place. No matter that the rand lost 6% this week. Zuma wants a finance minister who will sign the nuclear power stations cheques and green-light all manner of suspect deals. This is now an open declaration of war, and the fight back has begun. 

David Rockefeller Sr passed away earlier this month at the age of 101. In death, as in life, he remains the scourge of conspiracy theories the world over. He presided over the shadowy Council for Foreign Relations for decades and is widely assumed to be a key architect in the "deep state" government that survived more than a dozen presidents since World War 2. So who was this man, and what did he really stand for?

After a strong surge in recent weeks, the rand reversed some of its gains as speculation spread that President Zuma intended replacing finance minister Pravin Gordhan. This time, the economic fundamentals for South Africa are on a firmer footing, but the president seems oblivious of the damage his arbitrary policy making causes to the country.

Columnists are the rodent class of journalism. They tell their readers things they already believe. They are expected to take an ideological position and never stray from this. They end up spewing unoriginal, predictable and only mildly controversial ideas.  

The government seems to have an abiding disinterest in real land reform, other than as a race-baiting tactic. The evidence of this is the fact that somewhere around a quarter of all land in the country belongs to municipal governments. If it was serious about land reform, why not start here and distribute some of this idle land to the poor, writes Martin van Staden.

Monyweb reports that SAA chairperson Dudu Myeni's time may be up. Earlier this week the SAA Pilots Association and Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse filed a case against her in the South Gauteng High Court to have her declared a delinquent director over several financial irregularities and allegedly incompetent dealings. 

There has, quite appropriately, been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over South Africa's lamentable performance in the Fraser Institute's survey of the enabling environment for mining investment. In terms of one of the Institute's two indices – ‘policy perceptions’ – South Africa is the third worst performer on the African continent, writes David Christianson of the Institute of Race Relations.

The contract allowing Cash Paymster Services to continue paying social security grants has been extended for another year, according to Business Day. Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng (pictured left) had clearly lost patience with Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini over who exactly was going to pay out grants come 1 April.

“Speaking truth to power” is how many journalists describe their role in society. It’s a bold claim and serves a clear purpose: to occupy the moral high ground, especially in relation to politicians who are often depicted as bottom-feeders in the algae of political pond-slime. Helen Zille examines the state of the news business.

In desperate times, it is the black marekt that saves countries from their incompetent and rapacious governments. Two examples are examined in this article from TheAntimedia.org: Venezuela and Greece. To which we might add Zimbabwe and, increasingly, South Africa, where the shadow economy is reported to account for 25% of GDP. Governments traduce black marketeers as tax cheats and call them other horrible names, when they should be celebrated for pursuing the purest form of free enterprise.