Progress has been made in developing drugs to treat Aids. But much less attention has been given to developing a vaccine, writes Lesley Cowling TWO protease inhibitors – the “dramatically effective” Aids drugs – were registered in South Africa last week and a third is in the pipeline. Indinavir and ritonavir will soon be marketed […]

government’s heels Gaye Davis THE Democratic Party’s decision to reposition itself does not mean the terrier will stop snapping at the heels of government. But instead of just levelling criticism, it will also be offering solutions to problems facing the country, DP leader Tony Leon said this week. Its first offering – a strategy to […]

Reserve Bank Governor Chris Stals talks to Max Gebhardt about the challenges he faces amid continued currency turmoil COMPARED to last week’s freefall, the rand enjoyed something approaching a settled week. The currency’s downfall, while uppermost in the minds of the public, is one of several fundamental concerns over the economy. Reserve Bank governor Chris […]

Gaye Davis THE South African-born British Labour Party MP Peter Hain is to ask the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate whether South African security police framed him on bank theft charges in London in 1975. Hain, who was a driving force behind the sports boycott of South Africa during the apartheid era, is in […]

The notion of a global phone company is fast becoming a reality as deregulation spreads, writes Mark Tran THE race to become the first global phone company has taken a dramatic twist with British Telecom’s (BT) planned acquisition of MCI, the United States’s second-biggest long-distance company. Now, only AT&T and the BT-MCI alliance have the […]

ONE of the curious aspects of the African National Congress in government is its paradoxical insistence on exercising its authority when it is not needed and failure to do so when it is. The paradox was on display again this week, with regard to Zaire and the leadership struggle in the Free State. When Nelson […]

OPERA: Andrew Clements in Amsterdam WITH David Pountney’s staging of Shostakovich’s The Nose for The Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam, his already fertile imagination as well as his budget ran riot. There can’t be many opera houses in the world that could have bankrolled something as extravagant as this. Lasting under 100 minutes, it’s a virtuoso […]

Mail & Guardian Reporter THE attorney general’s astounding decision to allow Absa’s senior counsel to help pen the criminal charge sheet against former Absa boss Bob Aldworth while acting in a related civil matter has had some record- breaking spinoffs. When Aldworth appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrates Court this week it emerged that his lawyers, […]

Nobuyoshi Araki picks up women, snaps them naked, then sells the pictures to porn mags. NICHOLAS BORNOFF meets Japan’s unlikely popular hero NOBUYOSHI ARAKI says Tokyo is obscene. Coming from him, that’s a compliment. For he thrives on both obscenity and Tokyo. Araki was already famous 10 years ago, but today he is probably the […]

Chris McGreal reports from Goma on the looting of the hated president’s lakeside holiday home, a monument to extravagance in a land of poverty MOBUTU SESE SEKO has paid only one visit to his palatial holiday home on Lake Kivu. That was six years ago and he will not be going back. As Zaire’s president […]