Kwanele Sosibo

Savera Mohangi, acting CEO of the embattled Rob Ferreira Hospital in Nelspruit, refused to speak to the <i>M&G</i> unless provincial department of health spokesperson Mpho Gabashane was present. Her reticence is understandable, given that a spate of resig­nations in the past three months has further crippled this already incapacitated tertiary hospital, rated one of the five worst in the country by local newspaper <i>The Lowvelder</i>.

The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, which extended the range of health practitioners able to conduct abortions, was declared invalid by the Constitutional Court on Thursday on the grounds that Parliament had not sufficiently involved the public in drafting the Bill.

For many reasons, including the fact that I couldn’t pronounce the names, I’ve always looked on wine and its surrounding etiquette as a snobbish pastime for the grey and over-privileged. Many of the brand names still sound like toasts to colonial excess — an impression reinforced by the fact that the local industry remains less than 1% black-owned.

The South African Lebanese community has joined forces with concerned local Jews in condemning Israeli military action in Lebanon by releasing a joint petition for peace. "Everyone is in favour of stopping the war," declared Father Nadim Abu Zaid, of the Johannesburg-based Maronite Catholic Church in Woodmead

"Yoh! When was the last time I did this?" mutters Xoli Ntshingila as she looks around for a brush. Ntshingila recently won the Black Trophy at the World Hairdressing Championship in Moscow, making her the best ethnic hairdresser in the world. She’s about to give me a haircut, a privilege she doesn’t often extend to men these days, writes Kwanele Sosibo.

An independent disciplinary tribunal was not convinced that Aubrey Mokadi walked on water and fired him as vice-chancellor of the Vaal University of Technology. Dubbed "Jesus of the Vaal", he got axed after being found guilty on 161 counts of corruption, fraud and nepotism.

Young people were often at the forefront of the struggle to liberate South Africa and 30 years on they are still leading the way, producing solutions to age-old problems that have long vexed their elders. The South African Bureau of Standards Young Design Achievers Awards celebrates youngsters with big visions and the tenacity to bring their ingenious ideas to fruition.

A growing number of South African media companies are following MultiChoice into Africa, and they’re all learning that partnerships with local players are the key to bypassing negative sentiment and establishing a workable model. Kwanele Sosibo reports.

South Africa has an estimated 250 tons of obsolete pesticides within its borders, with more unaccounted for either in buried containers or scattered across its agricultural land. The reasons for the accumulation of stockpiles in developing countries vary, but include aggressive sales practices by the pesticide industry, inappropriate procurement and central purchasing policies.

As the Aids pandemic gathers momentum, the number of people requiring treatment grows, and more are dying every day. The reality is that just a small number of those who need anti-retrovirals have access to them. A number of private initiatives have sprung up recently to pick up the slack.

An exhibition of more than 60 of Picasso’s paintings, sculptures and drawings — including the seminal cubist work Les Demoiselles d’Avignon — is coming to South Africa. The exhibition will run at Johannesburg’s Standard Bank Gallery from February 10 to March 19 next year, and at the Iziko National Gallery from April 13 to May 26.

The People’s Budget Campaign, which comprises the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the South African NGO Coalition and the South African Council of Churches, has argued that the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement’s is thin on details regarding broader social targets and fails to properly account for the supposed drop in unemployment statistics.