Embattled Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has once again tried to put a spanner in the works of the South African National Aids Council, but has failed to secure the support she was hoping for. The Mail & Guardian learnt that civil society supporters of Tshabalala-Msimang were lobbying for a new position to be created in order to counter the newly appointed deputy chairperson of the council, Mark Heywood.

After the corks had been popped and the celebratory champagne drunk, it is down to business for South Africa’s new pay-TV entrants. The next few years are going to be crucial in determining who will emerge as a real competitor to MultiChoice and who will fall by the wayside.

A band of top unionists is planning to press for Thabo Mbeki’s inclusion in the Congress of South African Trade Unions’s (Cosatu) list of favoured ANC leaders at next week’s central committee meeing. But the knives appear to be out for one of its key members, Cosatu president Willie Madisha.

Africa Strategic Asset Protection, which faces allegations of corruption arising from its supply of security equipment to Parliament, won part of a highly sensitive contract to supply eavesdropping equipment to state intelligence agencies in 2004. The deal was to supply ”packet sniffer” technology.

News flash: There is nothing arousing about the sight of 36 000 bare-breasted, barely clothed virgins. Blame it on the relentless sun, or on the dervish wind blasting everything with red dust, or perhaps the litany of speeches which defiantly positioned Zulu culture in direct conflict with the Constitution.

The Constitutional Court will this week hear argument that could dramatically change the system for foreigners to adopt South African children. The case for the adoption of baby R by an American couple will be argued on Tuesday in Braamfontein after the Johannesburg High Court and Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed attempts by the couple to obtain a custody and guardianship order.

On Monday morning, hundreds of homeless people from the Joe Slovo squatter camp in Cape Town blockaded the N2 highway during peak-hour traffic, venting their anger and frustration with government for not providing houses. In response, Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said: ”Residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement must decide whether they wish to cooperate with government.”