South Africa

At Luthuli House in Johannesburg, six to eight million documents of untold South African history are being collected and compiled. On Thursday, a collection of videos — including depictions of boycotts, demonstrations and protests against the apartheid system — was added to the archive by the Dutch Anti-Apartheid Movement.

Hundreds of breasts were freed from their confines on Thursday, Guinness World Records Day, as local celebrities asked women strip off their bras and donate them to form the longest bra chain in the world. South Africa is trying to break a world record for the longest bra chain to raise awareness of breast cancer.

Johannesburg businessman David Rosen’s fatal fall from the sixth floor of the Michelangelo hotel last year was suicide, Business Day reported on Thursday. It said this conclusion from an inquest into Rosen’s death ended a murder probe into the incident, and lifted a cloud off former Corpcapital director Nic Frangos.

Every raped woman is still confronted by the problem of testifying in an open court, Johannesburg High Court Judge George Maluleke said on Wednesday, following an application by the state to have the evidence of dozens of women allegedly raped by Mongezi Samuel Jinxela heard in camera.

Ernie Els has confirmed that he will defend his Alfred Dunhill Championship title at the Leopard Creek Country Club near Malelane next month. The South African will return to Leopard Creek as one of the biggest stars in the December 7 to 10 tournament, which is played on South Africa’s number-one-ranked course.

On Saturday, the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) will celebrate a decade of what it calls improved relations with South African workers and employers. Nerine Kahn, director of the CCMA, calls the organisation a ”worldwide model of success” in terms of what has been achieved since its initial inception.

The so-called black middle class does not really exist, says politician turned businessman Saki Macozoma. ”It is a [mere] conceptual construction,” A media report quoted him as saying on Wednesday. Macozoma, currently chairperson of Stanlib, said the black group concerned does not have much of a ”class consciousness”.

National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi is hopeful that a breakthrough will be made in the near future in the murder case of businessman Brett Kebble, police said on Wednesday. ”The commissioner is hopeful of a breakthrough in the near future, he has asked the investigating team to report back to him in two weeks,” said Director Sally de Beer.

”It happens when your ancestors tell you to be a fortune teller. They come to you in a dream; when they come to you, you have to do it,” says Mandlenkosi Mthiyane, a sangoma at at the Faraday muti and traditional healers’ market in the centre of Johannesburg. Read our in-depth report in two parts on traditional healers in South Africa.

A pamphlet stuck on a wall in Fordsburg advertising the healer ”Dr Ismael … from the Spiritual Mountain Kumi” offers solutions to a range of problems, from removing bad luck and making one likeable at work to providing muti if one is ”weak in sex” and helping ”women who can’t produce”. Read part two of the Mail & Guardian Online‘s report on traditional healers.