Yearly Archives: 2008

As the government prepares to disband the Scorpions, four legal routes to stop the process have emerged in proposals by opposition parties and academics. Government’s justice and security cluster met on Thursday in Cape Town to discuss the details of incorporating Scorpions investigators into the South African Police Service.

Struggling to carry two large, heavy-duty plastic bags on his shoulders, Edgar Dlamini drags his feet into the Zondi Buy-Back Centre where he is going sell the plastic waste he has collected. He and hundreds of other Sowetans make a living out of picking up people’s waste and selling it for a profit at the Zondi Buy-Back Centre, in the west of Soweto.

The first medical-aid scheme run by a trade union was launched last week, bringing a powerful new force into the battle to control the rising cost of being sick and getting well in South Africa. Trade union Solidarity registered its Solvita scheme at the beginning of this year as a not-for-profit medical aid restricted to the union’s 130 000 members.

Senior members of staff at the Market Theatre in Newtown, Johannesburg, have accused the Department of Arts and Culture of mismanagement after the department failed to replace the theatre’s governing body. The tenure of the council that oversees the running of the theatre expired at the end of December.

The British high commission has confirmed that it is reviewing the relaxed visa requirements it shares with South Africa. It says that the British government took the decision out of concern that it is too easy to acquire South African travel documentation illicitly. The British are considering compelling South African citizens to apply for visas in advance.

A British church leader’s suggestion that the Bible might endorse gay relationships has raised fresh questions about the scriptural basis for Christian homophobia. The Guardian reported this week that the Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, James Jones, had apologised for objecting, with eight other bishops, to the appointment of gay cleric Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading.

Bucket toilets will remain part of the South African landscape, despite promises by President Thabo Mbeki, premiers and provincial ministers that this dehumanising system will be eradicated shortly. Last year in his State of the Nation address Mbeki promised that by the end of 2007 all South Africans would have access to sanitation.

The marriage between tuberculosis and HIV must be recognised and treated as a union of social — and not medical — diseases if the goal of eliminating tuberculosis in humans is to be achieved, says the head of the World Health Organisation’s Stop TB Partnership.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is ­weighing her options as the country’s deputy president. This has emerged as momentum gathers for African National Congress deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe to take her place in ­government. “Her view is that if people feel she is an obstacle, she is willing to get out,” said a source.