”South Africans choose to vote for political parties for many reasons — sometimes obvious, and sometimes subtle — but they are not simply trapped into casting their ballots along racial and ethnic lines. ”Casting a ballot is primarily not an instrumental calculation but an expression of who a citizen is,” said Steven Friedman, senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Studies.

Pity the person with Aids who is trying to find out where to go for anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment or how long it will take for the drugs to be available. The Mail & Guardian‘s attempts for the past month to obtain concrete information from each province suggest that public access to the life-prolonging drugs will be akin to a lottery and will depend on where you live.

Mel Gibson has reneged on a promise to remove the infamous scriptural blood libel, in which the Jews allegedly accepted responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus, from his film The Passion of the Christ, according to one of the world’s foremost scholars, who saw a preview showing on Thursday.

The Pentagon has ordered an urgent inquiry into reports that more than 100 American women deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been raped or sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers, it emerged on Thursday.

Scientists investigating a spate of illnesses among people living close to GM maize fields in the Philippines believe that the crop may have triggered fevers, respiratory illnesses and skin reactions. The scientists’ findings were immediately challenged by Monsanto, the world’s leading GM company, and by the Philippine government.