SOUTH Africans are using some 75% more condoms this year than last, an indication HIV/Aids awareness programmes are working, says Deputy President Jacob Zuma. “The demand for free condoms issued by government has increased from 200m last year to about 350m this year,” Zuma told a gathering in the Free State to mark the second […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday THE Heath Special Investigating Unit intends to investigate South Africa’s controversial R32bn arms deal after studying an Auditor-General’s report which highlighted several flaws in the procurement process. If the Heath unit’s application for a proclamation to probe the deal is approved, it will become the third body to probe […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission has reserved judgment in a former military intelligence operative’s application for amnesty for planning the bomb attack which maimed Constitutional Court Judge Albie Sachs. Henri van der Westhuizen, 40, said that prior to the hearing he approached Sachs – who as an African National Congress […]

HEALTH Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has acknowledged that MPs enjoy subsidised access to the anti-Aids drug AZT, which the state has decreed should not be given to HIV-infected people at public hospitals. The Sunday Times reported that the parliamentary medical aid scheme, which also serves provincial legislatures, pays R35_ 000 for anti-HIV therapy and provides AZT […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Bisho | Tuesday A DATE for South Africa’s much-postponed municipal elections could be announced by the end of the week after a committee reviewing the concerns of traditional leaders over new municipal boundaries finalised a report for President Thabo Mbeki. “We’re almost there,” said Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi. The announcement […]

A TRADE delegation from Gauteng led by Premier Mbhazima Shilowa has arrived in the US to establish joint ventures between local information technology companies and their US counterparts. According to the Gauteng Economic Development Agency (Geda), the aim is to increase access to US and other foreign markets for local companies. “It is not easy […]

SOUTH Africa’s telecommunications operator Telkom has launched a $250m one-year revolving credit facility in the euro-syndicated market to restructure existing group indebtedness and for general corporate purposes. The tenor of the facility is one-year, with a 15-month term out option, Telkom said in a statement. The deal is being managed by Credit Agricole Indosuez and […]

BUCHIZYA MSETEKA AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday STRIKING miners at the world’s top platinum producer Anglo American Platinum (Angloplat) will march on the firm’s headquarters on Wednesday to press for higher wages, their union said. As the strike dragged into its 23rd day, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which is representing strikers at […]

SOUTH Africa’s Competition Tribunal has approved four outsourcing deals concluded by telecoms operator Telkom aimed at cutting its non-core activities ahead of a 2001 initial public offering. It said the deals, some of which had initially faced opposition from workers concerned about their jobs, were subject to a stay of retrenchments by all parties in […]

IVORY Coast’s junta leader, General Robert Guei, is said to be alive and well after rumours circulated in Abidjan that he had been involved in a serious road accident. Sources said three paramilitary gendarmes had died and a dozen were injured in a road accident after they had been on presidential security duty along a […]