This year the cameras move away from emaciated African children, writes Niren Tolsi
Dr Francois Venter has very little time: his controversial op-ed piece in a Sunday newspaper calling for mandatory HIV/Aids testing for all South Africans has made him much sought-after at the third South African Aids Conference in Durban: people are keen to debate the ethics around the issue.
About 120 hand-picked learners in KwaZulu-Natal have participated in a pilot human rights workshop run by an organisation with direct links to the controversial Church of Scientology — with the backing of the provincial government. A proposal to have the programme rolled out to the rest of KwaZulu-Natal’s children is awaiting approval from the provincial legislature and the office of Premier Sbu Ndebele.
Critics of the KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Bill have drawn comparisons between it and the corralling and deportation of Jews in Nazi Germany. The Bill’s defenders in government, however, consider it a “revolutionary” way of preventing slumlords from renting out shacks and controlling the proliferation of informal settlements.
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language that goes to his heart,” intones the voice at the end of the marketing DVD for umAfrika newspaper. It is a quote from former president Nelson Mandela, which has resonated with the literate isiZulu population in KwaZulu-Natal: this is reflected in the state of robust health of isiZulu language newspapers in the province.
The history of Durban’s Grey Street casbah area — the subject and setting of various works of fiction and non-fiction — is the microcosm of the South African reality, writes Niren Tolsi
The ANC succession battle being fought in the trenches of KwaZulu-Natal continues to reveal a party that is at odds with itself: where cadre recruitment at branch level is being used to add impetus to campaigns for the presidency and allegations are emerging that policy workshops are being sabotaged to push forward a pro-Jacob Zuma agenda.
The buzz of an electric haircutter accompanies the comings and goings in one of downtown Durban’s derelict buildings. Men, mainly Ethiopian, come in for a haircut, others, to poke their heads through a door in the barber shop wall to a small cubicle. The woman inside respond to their requests in Amharic by holding up a neatly stacked bunch of green and crimson leaves on newspaper.
The mudslinging and violent undercurrent in Durban’s name-change row continued this week, with the IFP alleging that eThekwini city manager Mike Sutcliffe’s comments to the media had contributed to the harassment and intimidation of one of its councillors.
“There is no secret to being a good waiter. Like any job — whether you’re working at the till in Checkers or in the post office — you need manners,” retired waiter Eddie Naicker tells Niren Tolsi.