A South African drug dealer who tried to peddle his wares to undercover police was arrested while wearing a T-shirt proclaiming "True champions don’t do drugs and crime", a newspaper said on Friday. The 27-year-old thought he had found new clients and led the officers straight to a stash of marijuana and Mandrax tablets.
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille has accused the government of again washing its hands of responsibility and abetting Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s ”survival programme”. Writing in her weekly newsletter on the DA website on Friday, Zille also urged increased international pressure on Mugabe.
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who is on trial for atrocities committed in Sierra Leone’s civil war, would, if convicted, serve his sentence in Britain under an agreement made by British authorities. Britain’s government signed the sentence-enforcement agreement this week with the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Proposals have been put on the table to improve nurses’ salaries by between 20% and 23%, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang announced on Friday. ”Part of the proposal we have presented to the discussions with the health unions is that entry level salaries of nurses be increased by between 20% and 23% with effect from July 1 2007,” she said.
MOVIE OF THE WEEK: The Harry Potter franchise: It’s like we’re treading water until the big climax arrives, writes Shaun de Waal.
An exchange programme between Southern African and Native American artists has etched out parallels between cultures, writes Lynley Donnelly.
Affirmative action is dead in many respects, says Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin. Beeld newspaper reported him on Friday as saying the policy was not being applied in South Africa because of skills shortages. Erwin was defending the government’s affirmative action policy on Thursday at the South African Business Club in London.
Zimbabwe may stop publishing inflation data for one year, an effort economists say is aimed at shielding the government from embarrassment over its failure to rein in soaring prices in the economically depressed nation. President Robert Mugabe’s government has failed to release inflation figures for May and June.
The leadership of South Africa’s communist party has signalled it wants to stay allied to the ruling African National Congress (ANC) rather than contest elections independently. A proposal to run a separate slate of candidates in the 2009 elections was put forth at the South African Communist Party national congress this week, but was quickly sidelined.
<i>Mail & Guardian</i> writers look at the best of the real-life dramas on show at the Encounters South African Documentary Festival.