Eradicating massive backlogs in school infrastructure will cost about R40-billion. This represents nearly 40% of the current year’s education budget. The infrastructural challenges facing thousands of schools emerge from the most comprehensive audit ever done on the physical state of the country’s 25 000 public schools.

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.”

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.

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.