Peter Dickson A week after the government unveiled its controversial National Aids Council (NAC), Aids activists around South Africa have united online to form an alternative watchdog body, the Shadow National Aids Council (SNAC). “Every move, statement and omission will be monitored by SNAC,” outspoken Eastern Cape health official Dr Costa Gazi announced this week, […]

Marianne Merten The University of the Western Cape has dismissed allegations of financial mismanagement against senior lecturer Dr Rose September after an internal investigation. “This matter has been investigated and is now closed,” said UWC rector Professor Cecil Abrahams. It was alleged that September had been paid twice for an overseas air ticket to attend […]

Peter Dickson Eastern Cape sangoma and self-styled direct royal descendant and chief Nicholas Tilana Gcaleka, who hit world headlines four years ago with his British hunt for the head of 19th-century Xhosa King Hintsa, has taken legal action to retrieve the skull from the University of Cape Town (UCT). But the UCT forensic medicine department’s […]

STEVEN MANN, Cape Town | Thursday 5.00pm. PETER Hain, Britain’s minister of state for Africa, reiterated his country’s commitment to strengthening ties with Africa and rebuilding the war-torn continent, but provided scant new detail as to how this would be done. Hain delivered what was billed as a “major announcement” on Britain’s policy in Africa […]

Fiona Macleod Mpumalanga province declared its first internationally protected wetlands on World Wetlands Day on Wednesday. The Verloren Vallei Nature Reserve, 10km north of Dullstroom, is the province’s first proposed Ramsar site. This means it will be recognised internationally as a wetland system of importance, and will be protected against degradation and development. “We started […]

Cameron Duodu LETTER FROM THE NORTH Having only recently flown in an Airbus, my heart went out to the passengers on the Kenya Airways plane which fell into the sea a few minutes after taking off from Abidjan. I swear I noticed a shudder in the aircraft, followed by what seemed to be a buffeting […]

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Angus Begg WEEKENDS FOR LOVERS by Bridget Hilton- Barber (Southern) ‘Stopovers are the one-night stands of travelling and an evening with Lord Fraser is one you won’t regret.” Far from an invitation to spend the night with an ageing, cross-dressing British Conservative Party politician who has fallen foul of the tabloids, this is Bridget Hilton-Barber’s […]

Khadija Magardie CROSSFIRE The lead article in the Mail & Guardian (January 28 to February 3) on “Africa’s new slaves” demonstrated a one-sided view of the civil war in Sudan. The three crucial flaws in the article were Cameron Duodu’s failure to probe the role of Christian Solidarity International (CSI) in the alleged “slave trade” […]

Paul Kirk A week after Zulu chiefs met President Thabo Mbeki to ask for the proposed new changes in municipal demarcations to be put on hold, the King of the Pondos, Justice Mpondombini Sigcau, has called for “no changes” in the municipal demarcations in his area. Pondoland has seen exceptionally bloody faction fighting, and the […]