Staff Reporter

The Cabinet is divided, the civil service is paralysed, Jacob Zuma’s ground offensive is rolling ahead without meaningful opposition. And apparently the spy agencies, whose job it is to protect us, are so embroiled in the open warfare between President Thabo Mbeki and his erstwhile deputy that they risk becoming a threat to our welfare.

Recently, the Institute for Democracy in South Africa and the University of Cape Town’s law faculty sponsored a two-day colloquium dealing with the transformation and independence of the judiciary. It was dominated by two controversial debates. At least two senior judges argued that it was wrong to replace the apartheid-era crime-control model of criminal procedure with a human rights-oriented approach.

At least 11 people were killed overnight in a fire at a building housing cells for people awaiting expulsion from The Netherlands at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, according to a new toll from the Dutch news agency ANP, quoting the justice ministry. Fifteen other people, including fire officers, were injured and taken to hospital.

A South African student who attacked his sleeping roommate with a baseball bat told a judge on Wednesday that he was surprised to learn he was acting illegally in New Zealand. Artur Kalauov (19) was sentenced to six months in jail after pleading guilty to a charge of assault with intent to injure his roommate at an aviation college near the South Island town of Nelson.

October was the lucky month for Saul Ramatsetse, a teacher at Balegeng Primary School in Mamelodi East outside of Pretoria. His phone number was chosen in a random draw from over 360 entries for the prize of R10 000-worth of books, courtesy of Oxford University Press.

As I’m a happy geek — and you are too, otherwise you wouldn’t have even managed to find your way to this column, right? — I thought we should wade through some of the geek-related goodies and news items that just keep pouring in. For starters, the world’s smallest car has been created in a laboratory — measuring about three to four nanometres across.

Researchers in the United States and Uganda are exploring the implications of allowing HIV-positive patients to take a break from their medications every weekend, a strategy that could reduce the cost of treating the disease and improve the quality of life for patients.

Iraq’s first post-Saddam Hussein Constitution has been approved, the independent electoral commission said on Tuesday, as it announced the final results of this month’s landmark referendum. The new charter passed by a simple majority after opponents failed to muster the two-thirds majority in three of Iraq’s 18 provinces necessary to block ratification.

Despite a strong market performance, which saw the JSE rally 20% over the past quarter, investors have opted for more conservative investments and are wary of equities. This is according to the latest quarterly figures from the Association of Collective Investments. Asset allocation and fixed-interest funds made up the majority of investments, accounting for 80% of inflows.

Sitting in a classroom and wearing a shirt, tie and perfectly polished shoes, Lamine, a computer-science student in Senegal’s capital city, admits he has no idea whether or not he is HIV-positive. "I’ve never been tested and I don’t think I’ll do it any time soon," said the 25-year-old Dakar resident.

I was very interested in Professor Loyiso Nongxa’s article on Wits ("Ngxe!", September 30). For those ex-Witsies, like me, who were privileged white students in the 1980s at the height of apartheid, it was eye-opening to read such an honest account of just how excluded and alienated many of our fellow black student felt about their years at Wits.

One does have to sympathise with Jacob Zuma when he complains of being made to feel like a hounded activist of the apartheid days, the way the various warring branches of the State Gendarmerie go about things when fixing to throw the book at a private citizen these days.

While allegations of forensic bungling in the Brett Kebble and Constable Frances Rasuge cases have made headlines in recent weeks, the reality is that the criminal justice system is ill-equipped to handle forensic evidence, particularly in sexual offence cases. South Africa has arguably the world’s highest incidence of violence against women.