South Africa prop Heinrich Kok has been snapped up by Bath for the rest of the season as cover for a depleted front row. Props David Flatman, Matt Stevens and Christian Loader are all sidelined, which prompted the move for 30-year-old Kok. Kok helped the Lions secure semifinal status during this season’s Currie Cup competition in South Africa.

A criminal investigation has begun into an incident in which spectators were punched by rampaging players during a basketball game. Nine players were suspended for joining in the most riotous brawl since the sport became a fixture on United States television.

For three young men fleeing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), South Africa was supposed to be a haven. Instead, it was a detention centre — a dirt-floored pen made of chain-link fencing and razor wire, with no roof, toilets or running water. With temperatures soaring to 40°C, immigrants are caged for days at a time in an open-air, unsanitary facility near the Zimbabwean border.

Take a walk through Ntuthukoville, a low-income residential area in Pietermaritzburg. The roads are clean. Gardens are well cared for, with flowers and shrubs, paths and edgings. Old car tyres have been used as planters to shore up the steeply sloping ground. Residents have done all the work, transforming an impoverished settlement into a model of community self-help.

Some years ago, several babies in the neo-natal intensive care unit of the Park Lane Clinic died from a bacterial infection. Bacteria had been found in the drip bags attached to the babies, and in the babies’ bodies. In light of the recent talk of regulating private hospitals to keep costs in check, there is now a good opportunity to look at a few other issues concerning private hospitals, reckons Pat Sidley.