Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has advised residents of the N2 Gateway housing project who are threatening a rent strike to “give a month’s notice, pack their bags and make way for people who are willing to pay”. Sisulu was responding to a call by some tenants for rent payments to be suspended from the end of this month if construction defects remain ­unrepaired.

An award-winning Brazilian film focusing on misogyny and child abuse – due to be screened at the Durban International Film Festival – was banned this week by the Film and Publications Board, which ruled that it contained scenes that amounted to ”child pornography”. Directed by Claudio Assis, Bog of Beasts, which won the Best Film award wat the Brasilia Film Festival in 2006.

The Judicial Officers’ Association of South Africa said this week that the concerns about salary increases raised by judges also apply to magistrates, whose judicial functions and responsibilities are ”virtually identical”, differing only with respect to jurisdiction. South Africa’s judges have declined a 17% pay rise, saying that as Chief Justice Pius Langa was due to receive a 65% increase the huge disparities in salaries were divisive.

The Northern Cape provincial department of health will remain under the administration of the provincial treasury and the premier’s office “until such a time that our turnaround strategy is complete,” says the department’s acting MEC, Gomolemo Lucas. Instead of operating independently, the day-to-day running of the department will be in the hands of the treasury and the premier.

The health and public service ministers’ lack of response to the urgent court order to reinstate 41 healthcare workers shows their ”total disrespect for the rule of law and is characteristic of how government ministers are treating poor people and the courts”, says Zackie Achmat of the Treatment Action Campaign.

ANC delegates from KwaZulu-Natal will go to the party’s national policy conference at Gallagher Estate on June 27 armed with a clutch of resolutions seeking, among other things, greater state control of the media and the abolition of the position of ANC national chairperson. Other resolutions reflect disenchantment with government deployees and sympathy for ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma.

Ecotourism outfits based in one of South Africa’s most fragile ecosystems are discovering that coal mining and prospecting permits have been granted on their land without their knowledge or participation. Landowners in the Mpumalanga highveld have gone to court to stop the miners. Some have vowed to deny the miners access to their ­properties.

SACP Gauteng chairperson Nkosiphendule Kolisile has stepped down from his administrative post as assistant organiser, throwing the SACP into a fresh controversy. Kolisile’s resignation came in a week when SACP leaders tried to fend off allegations by its national treasurer, Phillip Dexter, of ”Stalinist” tendencies in the party.

Zimbabwe’s opposition leaders returned to their supporters eager to report some progress after their first direct talks with the ruling Zanu-PF recently, but found fresh evidence of widespread concern that infighting in the ruling party poses a threat to dialogue. The first round of formal talks has been overshadowed by the story of how four travel agents planned a military coup to overthrow President Robert Mugabe.