Dr Francois Venter has very little time: his controversial op-ed piece in a Sunday newspaper calling for mandatory HIV/Aids testing for all South Africans has made him much sought-after at the third South African Aids Conference in Durban: people are keen to debate the ethics around the issue.
Ordinarily, it should be old hat that a business organisation, even if it is one of the best in its industry, is majority black-owned, as the Jupiter Drawing Room is. The agency’s press release Âwriters say it is "Africa’s largest, black-owned, independent advertising agency". What is less subjective is that last month Jupiter was voted the AdÂFocus Ad Agency of the Year.
This month’s ANC policy conference, and its national conference in December, inspire both concern and confidence. The concern arises because the stakes are enormous: the outcome of these meetings will affect the course of South African history for many years to come.
South Africa is keeping its options open about a new climate-change framework proposed by the United States last week. The government said this week it would look at the US’s proposal, but that it respected the current round of United Nations negotiations on the subject. “It is something that South Africa will study,” President Thabo Mbeki’s office said.
The Nigerian government is suing the world’s largest drug manufacturer, Pfizer, for £3,5-billion in damages for allegedly carrying out illegal trials of an anti-meningitis drug that killed and disabled children. The children died or suffered serious side effects when the antibiotic, Trovan, was administered in Kano during a meningitis outbreak in 1996.
It is exactly six months before 5 600 delegates descend on Polokwane in Limpopo for the ANC’s 52nd national conference, when the election of South Africa’s future president lies in the hands of the 4 000 delegates with voting rights.
About 120 hand-picked learners in KwaZulu-Natal have participated in a pilot human rights workshop run by an organisation with direct links to the controversial Church of Scientology — with the backing of the provincial government. A proposal to have the programme rolled out to the rest of KwaZulu-Natal’s children is awaiting approval from the provincial legislature and the office of Premier Sbu Ndebele.
Trade union federation Cosatu believes the “Special Browse Mole Consolidated Report”, implicating Jacob Zuma in a plot to overthrow President Thabo Mbeki, was engineered by National Directorate of Public Prosecutions (Scorpions) operatives as part of a conspiracy to stymie Zuma’s presidential ambitions.
Private hospitals have hit back at charges that their price increases are excessive in a new report that shows that private hospital inflation in South Africa is in line with that of developed countries. The report shows that private hospital inflation of 5,6% for last year was lower than the overall medical inflation rate of 6,1%.
Once, you might have been stuck for the word to describe an unsightly tummy bulge protruding over low-rise jeans. But “muffin top” is one of hundreds of new words and phrases, along with “wag”, “size zero” and “hoodie”, that have entered the language and are listed in the Collins English Dictionary‘s 9th edition, published recently.