The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund is hoping to build a children’s hospital in Johannesburg to provide specialist care for children from across Africa. The proposed hospital will complement the multimillion-rand development of a health precinct already under way in Hillbrow, which is part of Johannesburg’s R2-billion inner-city regeneration project.

A group of Richtersvelders is trying to stop the Land Claims Court from making the settlement signed on April 22 with Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin an order of the court. After more than 10 years of legal battles fought against the government for restitution, as well as land and mineral rights, an agreement was signed between the community and Erwin, making the community a minority shareholder in present and future mining operations.

The ANC national executive committee decided in 2004 that the Merafong municipality be moved from Gauteng to North West. All subsequent public participation processes were, in effect, doomed from the start, court papers claim. These contentions were made in the Constitutional Court by Khutsong residents challenging President Thabo Mbeki to reverse the decision to incorporate the cross-border municipality of Merafong into North West.

The middle-class Avenues area on the northern peripheries of Harare’s city centre is a residential and commercial office zone with stark contradictions. One minute the sound of gunshots fills the morning air as police exchange fire with robbers; the next, church bells are tolling and harmonic voices are heard as women sing hymns in church and well-dressed middle-aged men and women walk to their offices.

The fierce morning heat was a memory. The afternoon haze had come and gone. It was the cool of dusk, with shadows stretching as the sun dipped below the Andes. And Hugo Chávez was still talking. The Venezuelan president had started at 11am, more than eight hours earlier — a new record.