Staff Reporter

South Africa, faced with one of the most severe HIV/Aids epidemics in the world, grapples daily with the challenges around education, prevention and management of the pandemic. A UNAids report estimates that in 2005 1,2-million South African children were left orphaned by HIV/Aids, double the number in 2003.

When the annual Vuka! Awards proudly celebrate a decade in existence next year they will be getting a new look. At this year’s Vuka! prize ceremony MultiChoice chief executive Nolo Letele announced that from 2008 the initiative will be hosted by M-Net. “We truly believe M-Net, our sister company and one of MultiChoice’s channel providers, will provide valuable insight and expertise and take the Vuka! Awards to the next level,” said Letele.

As the accusations fly that women’s rights are being used to advance political agendas in the ANC leadership contest, it is important to return to basics. The space that women occupy in the ANC is defined not only by the spirit and letter of the Freedom Charter, which proclaimed "All shall be equal in the eyes of the law." It is also described in the Constitution of the ANC, writes Jessie Duarte.

Regulated petrol prices have long been a feature of the government’s fuel strategy, but this is starting to change. The draft biofuels strategy, approved by Cabinet last week, proposes that petrol containing bio-ethanol should retail at a deregulated price, writes Jocelyn Newmarch.

I call her "the torturer" to her face, as do most of her clients, but that never elicits anything other than a broad smile and a smug nod. She’s diminutive, has delicate features and a soft nature, yet the pain she inflicts easily brings tears to the eyes of her many clients. Three years after being a regular customer of hers, I still wriggle and scream out loud.

<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=ancconference_home"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/321750/Icon_ANCconference.gif" align=left border=0></a>"The media call me ‘Tony Yengeni, disgraced ANC leader, convicted fraudster and former chief whip’ and, by doing that, you ridicule and pour scorn on me. There’s a selective morality at play for people like myself and Jacob Zuma," Western Cape ANC strongman Tony Yengeni said in a rare interview this week. Yengeni, who was arrested again recently on charges of drinking and driving, is an angry man.

<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=ancconference_home"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/321750/Icon_ANCconference.gif" align=left border=0></a>Neither President Thabo Mbeki nor ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma is suitable candidate to lead the party. So said Archbishop Desmond Tutu this week. The country needs an inspirational leader to take the reins of the ANC. "The nation is in distress and needs a political leader who cares for them and makes them feel as though they matter," he said in an interview with the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>.

Suhail Abu al-Sameed looked calm, yet he was shaking inside. He was seated before a row of ulama, distinguished Islamic scholars, from Afghanistan to Yemen, at the International Consultation on Islam and HIV/Aids, organised by the charity, Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), in Johannesburg last week.

Standard Bank’s BEE status hangs in the balance following its sale of a 20% stake to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. It might be forced to do a second BEE deal to keep black ownership at current levels. Should its black-owned shareholding drop to below 10%, it could be disqualified from claiming ownership points under the financial charter.

More than a third of patients on HIV medication in sub-Saharan Africa die or discontinue their treatment within two years of starting it, a survey shows. The study found that many start taking antiretrovirals (ARVs) too late, while for some it is impractical to travel to distant clinics. The American researchers also found evidence that in cases where patients have to pay for ARVs, some stop treatment.

<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=ancconference_home"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/321750/Icon_ANCconference.gif" align=left border=0></a>"For many of us in the ANC, we treat the movement as our father’s house." <i>Mail & Guardian</i> editor Ferial Haffajee interviews African National Congress (ANC) national executive committee member Trevor Manuel, who emphasises that the ANC’s ethos is at risk and must be defended.

Rebel general Laurent Nkunda on Wednesday called for talks with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) government after his troops secured some military victories that left them facing off with United Nations peacekeepers in the eastern Nord-Kivu province.

<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=ancconference_home"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/321750/Icon_ANCconference.gif" align=left border=0></a>With little more than a few days to go before the ANC conference, the cleft in the party appears to be deepening and sniping between factions more acrimonious and personal. After interviews with party ‘elders’ last week, the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> asked four more senior leaders to reflect on the state of the ANC and its clouded future