Staff Reporter

The South African government has received its first-ever environmental protection vessel, marked by an official handover ceremony on Monday. Accepting the new R113-million ($19m) vessel, named the <i>Sarah Baartman</i>, the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, said that at no point had South Africa been better equipped to protect its marine resources.

South African supermarket chain Shoprite’s turnover has improved by 14,1% to R15,2-billion for the six months to January 2 2005, comprising 27 weeks, compared with the corresponding six months or 26 weeks in 2003, the group said on Monday. If the additional week of the current reporting period is disregarded, turnover growth was 10,3%.

Israel is to create an international genetic database to identify victims of last month’s tsunami. The proposal was accepted by all nations involved in the disaster. Many victims cannot be identified without using DNA fingerprinting to match their genetic material with that of their families. Israeli forensic scientists are considered experts in this technique because of the country’s experience with suicide bombers.

As you drive west of Banda Aceh, through the splintered streets, you soon reach the groves of palm trees that flank the scarred road but fail to conceal the devastation on either side. You keep the vehicle’s windows up to shut out the smell of the thousands of bodies that still lie, unclaimed and unidentified, under the rubble, the thick silt, the smashed timber and the standing, stagnant saltwater.

The world’s leading industrial nations on Friday night agreed to suspend debt payments from countries in south-east Asia affected by the tsunami disaster. Responding to the damage caused by the wave, the G7 nations announced an immediate debt moratorium and promised further assistance when they meet in London next month.

Iranian bus and truck drivers will soon face being stopped at the side of the road and forced to pee into a bottle as part of a police campaign to weed out drug users.
An estimated 10% of these drivers use narcotics, meaning police have been forced to add thin-layer chromatography urine-testing kits to their arsenal.

Zimbabwe Minister of Information Jonathan Moyo’s bid to appeal against his exclusion from the ruling Zanu-PF’s primary elections in Tsholotsho will not succeed once the party’s central committee adopts the decision to reserve the seat for a woman candidate, Zanu-PF’s secretary for administration said on Thursday.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Africa&ao=177561">Sunday Times article upsets Moyo</a>

The South African labour market is bracing itself for countrywide strikes as disputes between the government and major unions over teachers’ salaries and the working conditions of prison warders reach boiling point. The South African Democratic Teachers Union has withdrawn its threat to strike next week as schools reopen in several provinces, but has threatened imminent industrial action if its grievances are not addressed.

Not the Mail & Guardian is Robert Kirby’s startling and savagely satirical parody of the Mail & Guardian newspaper. Any similarity between real people and characters portrayed here is anything but coincidental Schumacher looks for new challenge: Seven times formula one world champion Michael Schumacher has quit Ferrari for Minardi. Said Schumacher: ‘Minardi have made […]

In the crowded wards of African hospitals, coughs and bony bodies tell the story of a deadly return. Tuberculosis (TB), supposedly defeated 40 years ago, is back, riding on the Aids epidemic, and the world is ill-prepared, says the relief agency Médécins sans Frontières (MSF). TB kills two million people every year, nearly all in developing countries. Yet TB is curable.

It is best for a family to be open about suffering from terminal diseases rather than let rumours spread like wildfire, former president Nelson Mandela said in Johannesburg on Thursday after announcing that he lost his son, Makgatho Mandela, earlier in the day to Aids.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=177494">Nelson Mandela’s son dies</a>

South Africans have opened their hearts and donated millions in funds and aid via private and government initiatives to help tsunami disaster victims in Africa and across the world. Meanwhile, the number of South African fatalities arising from the tsunami has risen to 10.

HIV/Aids pandemic, a disorganised Department of Health, corrupt health workers, a censorship bill that needs redressing… Even after 10 years of democracy South Africa is still in dire need of reshaping.

Sexual boredom leads to a sort of desperate lack of inhibition and propriety. In England married couples, between the ages of 30 to 50, are taking part in a post-modern tribal ritual called “dogging”.

Europeans honoured the 146 000 victims of the Asian tsunami disaster on Wednesday, observing a European Union call for three minutes’ silence at noon. Flags were lowered to half-mast, stock exchanges stopped trading and public transport came to a standstill.

Aid flights resumed on Tuesday to a major hub of the international tsunami aid operation in Indonesia, after workers removed a supply plane that had hit a herd of cattle. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair absorbed more criticism on Tuesday for not interrupting his holiday following the disaster.

Zimbabwean authorities arrested a senior official in the National Security Ministry on Tuesday, as dramatic investigations into spying activities unfold. His arrest brings to six the number of people arrested for spying in recent weeks.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Africa&ao=177306">Ministers suspects in ‘spy ring'</a>

Chaotic relief efforts on Indonesia’s tsunami-raked Sumatra island hit a new stumbling block on Tuesday with a cargo plane accident, as the United Nations warned the death toll in the country could soar to more than 100 000. Hundreds of aid workers backed by helicopters have descended on Aceh.

Voice communications using internet standards will be the fastest-growing technology application among South African corporations in 2005. More than half the organisations interviewed in a survey intend to use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) for the first time this year — on top of a third of that already use the technology.

The world’s biggest and most difficult victim-identification operation has started. While corpses are usually disposed of in days, or weeks in the case of murder investigations, the complexity and scale of the tsunami disaster is likely to mean that thousands of cadavers will have to be kept on ice for months.