Former apartheid police files on Dumisa Ntsebeza, the former chief investigator of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, are among several that have disappeared from the safekeeping of the South African Police Service since 1998.

President Thabo Mbeki seems to have changed his mind about political smearwords. The South African Communist Party has highlighted a speech Mbeki made in 1998 in which he strongly criticises the use of ”ultra-left” and other labels to isolate political opponents.

The ANC Women’s League’s surprise attack on this month’s anti-privatisation strike has prompted speculation that its president, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, is feeling politically vulnerable. A senior ANC leader said that Madikizela-Mandela’s court battles ”have in essence paralysed” the league.

TAC leader Zackie Achmat, Cosatu president Willie Madisha and NUM general secretary Gwede Mantashe are some of the names being touted by leftists within the ANC for the party’s national executive committee.

The ANC is in a tight spot over its pledge to give the NNP seats in ANC-controlled provincial cabinets. After delivering Cape Town to the ANC in the first week of floor crossing, the NNP clearly expects the provincial rewards pledged in last November’s pact between the parties.

Aids activist organisations and civil groups have hailed the Cabinet’s statement this week announcing that the government is considering universal access to anti-retroviral drugs. The move is one of several proposals to strengthen the government’s efforts to fight HIV/Aids.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions’s strike unleashed an ideological and propaganda struggle that divided not just the ruling alliances, but the broader congress movement. Jaspreet Kindra documents the unfolding conflict.

Willie Madisha, president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, says government leaders may be linked to attempts to infiltrate the labour movement in a bid to fragment it. Madisha said: ”We know those who make these statements have planted people in our organisation to weaken some of our affiliates…”

Confusion reigns in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) over whether government is, or is not, willing to negotiate on its privatisation programme. The government’s stand become muddied after the Ministry of Public Enterprises sent out a stinging letter to Cosatu last week.