LARGE PRINT ZULU BIBLE THE Bible Society of South Africa has launched the first large-print Bible to be published in Zulu, the society said in Cape Town on Tuesday. The Bibles were specially produced for Zulu-language speakers with weak eyesight. The society said there is a desperate shortage of large-print literature in the indigenous languages […]

TUESDAY, 3.00PM: A SENIOR official of vigilante group People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad), Adeeda Roberts, was arrested at dawn on Tuesday after a surprise police raid found a top-secret intelligence document in her home. The document was found by police during a surprise search for weapons and ammunition by police in the early hours […]

MONDAY, 4.00PM: FORMER security policeman Gideon Nieuwoudt has won the right to a new panel to hear his application for amnesty for the 1977 death in detention of Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko. Nieuwoudt — already convicted of four murders — has been named repeatedly in Eastern Cape torture cases. He argued on Monday that […]

MONDAY, 9.00AM: THE US-based Human Rights Watch claims in a report issued on Monday that South African arms are being smuggled to rebels in Burundi. The report names companies with apartheid-era links, and says Spoornet trains are used for the smuggling. The SA government denies knowledge of the smuggling, but says it will investigate. Human […]

MONDAY, 1.00PM: ZIMBABWEAN president Robert Mugabe announced on Saturday he will not allow the courts to judge his decision to reclaim white-owned farms. Speaking at a political rally for his ruling party Zanu (PF), Mugabe announced that the move to confiscate nearly 1 500 farms is a “political issue” and not a matter for the […]

MONDAY, 1.00PM: The newly formed Black Managers Forum (BMF) of the South African Police Service has come in for severe criticism from national police commissioner George Fivaz, who labelled it “reverse racism”. The forum was set up by black officers in the police as a lobbying centre against white racism. Fivaz said he had already […]

MONDAY,5.30PM: THE African National Congress’ Women’s League has chosen to duck the contentious publicity around its support for Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s bid for the party’s deputy president post — by refusing to say anything about it. The league announced on Monday that it will wait until after the ANC’s annual conference to issue a media statement […]

World Aids Day dawned this week on two different epidemics. Epidemic one, in the developed world, sees an Aids plague that has not spread as fast or as fiercely as first predicted. There are fewer people dying, fewer people catching Aids, fewer reported HIV infections. These reductions should be celebrated. Preventive health campaigns as well […]

Andy Duffy The Department of Education is pushing for a hefty increase in government funding to poor students next year. At a meeting earlier this week, department officials surprised campus stakeholders with a proposal to raise the government’s funding to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme far above the R200-million pumped in for 1997. The […]

If Gear fails it could lead to political mobilisation against the government, writes Johann Nel Unemployment is undeniably a national crisis. The Reserve Bank estimated that five million people were without formal jobs at the end of 1995, an unemployment rate of 33% of economically active South Africans. In 1996, when the economy registered relatively […]