HIV/Aids pandemic, a disorganised Department of Health, corrupt health workers, a censorship bill that needs redressing… Even after 10 years of democracy South Africa is still in dire need of reshaping.
Four institutions only will make up South Africa’s higher education system within a year. There will be one vast mega-university, plus the Walter Sisulu University for Technology and Science (WSU), the University of the Western Cape and Mangosuthu Technikon (MT).
Capetonians expressed dismay and disappointment this week after a man they watched fall from a 14-floor window struck the pavement — and died. Alfred Swan had been trying to water the flower boxes outside his office, when he slipped and fell.
A covert Russian space probe, The Semteski III, has captured an extraordinary battle between two Earth robotic vehicles on the surface of Mars. The robotic explorers were photographed attacking each other, trying to snatch samples from each other’s baskets.
Defence procurement decisions are opaque, corruptible and often subject to political considerations that may directly contradict assessments of affordability and technical specification. So perhaps there is nothing surprising about the draft reports of the investigation into the Strategic Defence Packages reluctantly released by Shauket Fakie, the Auditor General, following a court order.
United States President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have met in Iraq for a secret summit before that country goes to the polls for its first democratic elections.
A group of elderly women has been arrested in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, accused of plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe. They were allegedly equipped with binoculars and “tubular objects that pose a danger to national security”.
The Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, this week revealed his plans for “an innovative new initiative” to attract the growing numbers of “theme tourists” to South Africa.
An imaginative solution has been found to the problem of parliamentary travel. This follows on the “Travelgate” scandal, which last year became a threat to the dignity of the politicians elected to serve in this forum of democratic endeavour.
There have recently been encouraging signs that science and technology are climbing back on to the international development agenda. There could not be a more dramatic — or terrible — illustration of the urgent need for this attention than the devastation that swept through many of the coastal communities of south and south-east Asia as a result of the December 26 tsunami.