South Africa

Company offers free anti-Aids drug to patients
JOHANNESBURG -- Pressure is mounting on pharmaceutical companies making anti-Aids drugs following a decision by Pfizer to make Fluconazole free to people living with Aids. The drug company's corporate affairs director, Thabi Nyide, confirmed yest...

Govt to consider Orania self-determination
KIMBERLEY -- The Cabinet may consider amending legislation in order to include the Orania community's claim to self-determination in the terms of reference of the Municipal Demarcation Board, Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamad...

Bereft fans crowd Bridges' funeral
VANDERBIJLPARK -- Emotions ran high at the burial of Afrikaans singer Bles Bridges yesterday with about 7000 of his fans pushing and shoving to catch a last glimpse of the silver coffin containing the singer's body. "This is the saddest day for a...

Asmal questions lack of debate on higher learning
JOHANNESBURG -- Education Minister Kadar Asmal yesterday set the cat among South Africa's academic pigeons when he launched a new lecture series decrying the dearth of intellectual debate in the country's higher institutions of learning. "Why are...

Chauke 'removed video tape after R12m heist'
PRETORIA -- A former SBV security company employee yesterday identified Colin Chauke and Mafika Mahlangu as her abductors on the day R12 million was stolen from a cash depot in Arcadia here in 1997. Sharlay Bartman told a packed high court here s...

Leon: Mbeki's view on HIV/Aids issue strange
CAPE TOWN -- President Thabo Mbeki owed South Africa and Parliament an explanation for his "strange" approach to the HIV/Aids problem, opposition leader Tony Leon said yesterday. "I now believe that President Mbeki has misled the people of South ...

Mbeki told of mood of depression in SA judiciary
PRETORIA -- There was a tangible mood of depression in the judiciary, the General Council of the Bar told President Thabo Mbeki yesterday. In an open letter to the president, council chairman Jeremy Gauntlett listed a range of concerns which he s...

EC PAC backs Mogoba
GRAHAMSTOWN -- About 250 delegates from 80 PAC branches in the Eastern Cape will attend a crucial party congress in Mpumalanga beginning on Thursday. Despite speculation about the demise of current leader Stanley Mogoba, Eastern Cape PAC MPL Zing...

Govt to go ahead with taxi reforms
JOHANNESBURG -- The government vowed yesterday to implement its taxi recapitalisation programme without the participation of taxi associations, after the acrimonious withdrawal of the South African Taxi Council (Sataco) from the consultation proce...

Challenge to office closure
By Lucas Mati EAST LONDON -- The UDM in the province has challenged Education MEC Stone Sizani to explain the closure of the Butterworth regional education office. UDM spokesman Mabandla Gogo said while his party welcomed the process of rational...

SAA crew member held over cocaine
JOHANNESBURG -- Police yesterday arrested a South African Airways cabin crew member who had just arrived at the Johannesburg International Airport on a flight from Brazil allegedly carrying 5kg of cocaine, worth at least R1,5 million, around his w...

Editors affirm their support for hearings on racism in media
JOHANNESBURG -- Editors testifying yesterday before the resumed Human Rights Commission (HRC) hearings into racism in the media affirmed their support for the inquiry's objectives. Initially many editors had fought the inquiry because they feared...

Shot baby making progress
JOHANNESBURG -- South Africa's youngest crime victim, the baby shot in her mother's womb during a hijack attempt last Thursday, started breathing on her own for the first time yesterday. Baby Courtney Faye Ellerbeck, who sustained a flesh wound t...

Smith feels no hate as rapist gets 30 years
JOHANNESBURG -- Journalist Charlene Smith, who went public over her rape ordeal, was vindicated yesterday when the regional court magistrate here, JD Pretorius, jailed Johannes Zinto for 30 years. Fifteen of those years were for the rape. DNA te...

Son in court after wealthy parents found murdered
DURBAN -- The son of an affluent KwaZulu-Natal couple who were brutally murdered in their Westville home a week ago appeared in the Pinetown Magistrate's Court yesterday in connection with his parents' death. Koos Wolmarans, 57, and his 55-year-...