Kurnel Plaatjies was having a bad week. He had been starved overnight, had a tube stuffed up his nose and fluid poured down it and sucked out. He had been forced to breathe strange mixtures and made to cough. And now strangers were trying to make friends when all he wanted to do was watch television. The indignant toddler is a volunteer foot soldier in the world’s most advanced attempt to create a vaccine to stop the spread of tuberculosis.

Twenty years from now, tobacco-related diseases will be implicated in 9% of deaths worldwide, with the majority occurring in lower-income countries. Already two-thirds of smokers live in 15 low- and middle-income nations. Addressing the World Conference on Lung Health in Cape Town recently, Judith Mackay said communicable diseases receive attention, money and support lacking in the case of non-communicable diseases such as those caused by smoking.

A series of critical challenges looms for the National Prosecution Authority (NPA) as the embattled organisation prepares to re-charge presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma. The Mail & Guardian has established that the Zuma prosecution team has prepared a revised indictment in the light of last week’s Supreme Court of Appeal decision ruling on the legality of the searches of Zuma and his likely co-accused, the French Thint group.

In May last year Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour told Parliament the country’s two private prisons were too expensive. He promised that the eight new generation prisons to be built would not be operated by private companies and argued for a new model where companies would only be asked to build and maintain prisons, with the department of correctional services running the operational side.

The new government strategy to tackle crime in South Africa will be flawed from the outset unless individuals in key positions are removed, role players in the criminal justice system said this week. The strategy, masterminded by Deputy Justice Minister Johnny de Lange and non-executive director of FirstRand Laurie Dippenaar, aims to overhaul the crime-fighting system.

Defenders of the Koni Media bid for Johncom are trying to discredit the detractors. Former government spokesperson Onkgopotse JJ Tabane believes the critics are racially opposed to black empowerment. Others argue that the concerns are groundless. The Mail & Guardian asked a range of analysts and editors to give their views.