Jaspreet Kindra

Free State provincial minister of education and former trade unionist "Papi" Kganare has complained to the ANC about efforts by provincial leadership to exclude him from the election list. Kganare’s name features at number 41, the third-last on the list of ANC candidates for the provincial legislature.

Former Truth and Reconciliation commissioners have expressed concern about the once-off payment being disbursed as final reparations to victims of apartheid identified by the TRC. This week the government starts disbursing the final payment of about R30 000 to each of the identified 18 000 victims.

SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande has taken a side-swipe at President Mbeki in an article in the party’s online publication, <i>Umsebenzi</i>, this week, accusing Mbeki of "avoiding taking the [ruling Tripartite] Alliance for granted", and "gambling with its unity willy-nilly, as some within our ranks are opportunistically tempted to do nowadays".

Deputy President Jacob Zuma says French arms manufacturer Thales has denied the existence of a note alleged to reveal that he tried to solicit a half-a-million-rand-a-year bribe from the company.

The "Coalition for Change" — the Democratic Alliance and the Inkatha Freedom Party — is going to be the black alternative to the ruling African National Congress, say officials of the opposition parties. One could count on one’s fingers the number of white faces at the rally on Sunday in Soweto where the coalition was launched.

IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi has charged that the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal also has a massive, hidden arms cache at its disposal. He was responding to an article in the <i>M&G</i> last week, which revealed that the state investigative unit, the Scorpions, is hunting for an Inkatha arsenal that was set up in the early 1990s.

Tensions are sharpening in the ranks of the ANC ahead of the upcoming provincial conferences to determine who will be the organisation’s election candidates next year. By the end of this month all ANC provinces must have held conferences to determine who their nominees for public office will be.

Key parts of Cosatu’s strategy to slowly unravel the cords that bind it to the ANC were revealed at its recent eighth national conference. Many — including Mbeki — might not agree with this particular observation, but any neutral observer can see that the two organisations are headed in very different directions.

At its "watershed" eighth national conference next week, the two million-member Cosatu will launch a programme aimed at putting the working class in the driving seat of the transformation process. A congress document penned explicitly attacks "high-level ANC members" on the right of the party who "side with capital".

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has described the corruption allegations against Deputy President Jacob Zuma as "politically most serious" in its congress documents.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) will consider asking the ruling African National Congress to set aside 20% of its candidates for the labour federation, ahead of next year’s general election.

Despite an upbeat assessment of the African National Congress Women’s League’s congress by some of its officials, many of the problems that plagued the organisation are likely to remain with it for a while.

Cosatu’s influential transport affiliate has warned that it will not tolerate beyond 2004 the "continued arrogance and undermining of workers" by the African National Congress government.

Senior ministers, including Minister of Education Kader Asmal and Minister of Public Enterprises Jeff Radebe, played a key role in driving last week’s Cabinet U-turn on anti-retroviral drug treatment for HIV/Aids.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=19077">Aids plan could halve number of orphans</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/ntent/l3.asp?ao=19093">Activists remain cautious</a>

Last Sunday morning Mankwanyane, a sleepy village in Empangeni, woke up to the blood-splattered scene of the horror massacre of six members of a family. Survivors believe it was a politically motivated attack by IFP members.

The Inkatha Freedom Party apparently wants to subject its national council members to a lie detector test to establish whether they have leaked confidential information to the media and other organisations.

The Department of Social Development is investigating Cash Paymaster Services’s (CPS) administration of pensions in KwaZulu-Natal.

Bizarre details of misgovernance, reckless management and alleged misappropriation of funds in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature emerged this week with the release of a confidential auditor general’s report.

The KwaZulu-Natal government threw a R1,5-million party on the occasion of the handing over of the R5-million Ondini palace to King Goodwill Zwelithini last week.

More than 500 people are dying of Aids-related illnesses in Zimbabwe daily, according to the latest projections endorsed by the United Nations Aids programme, UNAids.

The Zimbabwean situation focuses a harsh spotlight on the credibility of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development’s (Nepad) peer review mechanism, and tough questions are sure to be raised at the G8 summit in Evian which started on June 1.

Dialogue between the two main political parties in Zimbabwe since the three Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders’ visit to Harare earlier this month is deadlocked.

President Thabo Mbeki launched a sophisticated attack on the trade union federation leadership and other left-wing critics — alternating praise with criticism on Workers’ Day on Thursday.

The Inkatha Freedom Party is contemplating firing member Bonga Mdletshe from the provincial speaker’s position to ensure that the African National Congress does not have the numbers to take over the reins of KwaZulu-Natal.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) says President Thabo Mbeki has snubbed it by holding special briefings on the Growth and Development Summit for its counterpart, the Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa).

While Hong Kong wrestles with severe acute respiratory syndrome, a chicken dish named after the island city is causing a stir in the Eastern Cape.

Now that the dust around the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report has settled, the reputation of former president FW de Klerk’s legacy as a peacemaker and a co-liberator is being reassessed. He might have been more of a political pragmatist than a peacemaker.

The African National Congress’s national leadership has postponed the party’s provincial elections amid fears that branches will re-elect Makhenkesi Stofile as chairperson, say party insiders.

The party is taking every precaution to prevent further defections that may give the ANC control of KwaZulu-Natal. It has relocated to Parliament three KwaZulu-Natal legislature members — including feared former "warlord" Thomas Shabalala — in an apparent move to pre-empt their defection to other parties.

ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe talks about Tony Yengeni, forgiveness, friends and foes, including those in Zimbabwe

Incoming Minister of Housing Brigitte Mabandla has been universally praised for her intelligence and personal warmth — but questions have been raised about her administrative abilities.