A post template

No image available
/ 16 September 2005

Boksburg blues

As with our sports teams, we expect our artists to practise excellence while we put up with the profound incompetence for the practitioners of those who govern these respective areas, writes Mike van Graan.

No image available
/ 16 September 2005

Sudanese Cabinet dispute drags on

Sudan’s former southern rebels threatened on Friday to seek third-party arbitration in their dispute with the ruling party over the line-up of their much-delayed national unity government. The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and the ruling National Congress Party have been locked in acrimonious talks.

No image available
/ 16 September 2005

‘ANC uses floor-crossing to pay debt’

Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon has accused the African National Congress of trying to force taxpayers to service the party’s debt, using floor-crossing to maximise the amount of money it will receive. The amount of public money given to political parties is to increase, based on the number of MPs parties have in Parliament.

No image available
/ 16 September 2005

A spiral of mini-epidemics

Scientists are reconceptualising the HIV/Aids pandemic as a huge number of mini-epidemics, each centred on a hyper-infectious individual. This is in contrast to the idea of a rolling tsunami of infections, with HIV-positive people spreading the epidemic throughout the long asymptomatic ”chronic” stage of HIV.

No image available
/ 16 September 2005

Males quail over 50/50 move

The African National Congress’s equal gender representation policy for the upcoming local government elections is expected to spark a scramble for positions as male councillors lose their jobs. The ANC decided at its national general council in June on a 50/50 quota of men and women representatives for the local government elections and all future polls.

No image available
/ 16 September 2005

Broken telephones

The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) was angered recently when Telkom called in the police to break up a picket outside Telkom Towers in Pretoria. The picket was organised by the FXI in response to the ”contempt” Telkom had shown the institute by failing to attend a forum held last weekend to discuss access by poor communities to telecommunications.

No image available
/ 16 September 2005

Jazz and life return to New Orleans

New Orleans’s French Quarter with its historic facades — a pulsing microcosm full of jazz bars, piano bars, hotels, restaurants, sex clubs and galleries — might be able to return to its normal day- and nightlife since it was relatively undamaged by Hurricane Katrina. But the city is not taking any risks.