Leaves caution behind

Fired by Mbeki, but Nozi is still in office, according to at least two government websites, the GCIS and the Maniacal Beetroot, Drunken Kleptomania and Inadvertent Genocide Ministry Ministry of Health.

“Deputy Minister of Health of the Republic of South Africa since 29 April 2004″, the GCIS tells us in its potted profile, noting as its own source, the “Deputy Ministry of Health”.

The Ministry of Health, meanwhile, also still lists Nozi as Deputy Minister of Health.

Evidence of a hidden cabal of Nozi supporters within government? More likely, evidence that those attempting to wrestle the sprawling, increasingly tired-looking hydra of government websites are losing their grip on the behemoth.

… this is the prime minister of Lesotho, Pakalitha Mosisili, testing publicly for HIV, in January 2004.

Lesotho is a tiny, impoverished, mountainous country, entirely landlocked by South Africa. It’s arguably extremely under-developed when compared to its racing leviathan of a neighbour. But it seems that in some respects it’s far more developed than South Africa. Will South Africans have to wait till our HIV prevalence, now around 20%, hits Lesotho’s 30% before our politicians rediscover sense and courage? Or will they remain cowed by our culpably homicidal president?

Not only have Lesotho’s politicians tested publicly, they have also made Lesotho only the second country in the world (first was Brazil) to have introduced Universal Voluntary Counselling and Testing. In other words, they aim to specifically and deliberately give every last soul in Lesotho the opportunity to test for HIV. Yet South Africa, with all its supposed wealth, resources and gee-whizzbang constitution/Bill of Rights, does not do the same.

Sign a petition in support of Nozizwe here.

We live in an age of increasing specialisation, both on a group and individual level. Just 200 years ago, for example, if a particular community was faced with the need for a bridge, or a road, or by a natural disaster, it was, largely that community which had to respond; no-one else would.

But after hundreds of thousands of years of this mode of organisation, the last 150 years, particularly, has accustomed us to state responses to social need or crisis. These responses have the advantages of course, of usually drawing on greater resources, consolidated expertise and economies of scale.

Has our new conditioning, to rely on such responses, weakened us socially? Read the rest of this entry »

Workers in mining companies are coming down with AIDS – International Herald Tribune

LONDON: From Africa to Russia, from Peru to China, mining companies face a problem: The workers who haul up the earths riches are coming down with AIDS, and it is hampering operations at a time of booming demand for minerals.
“The epidemic is extremely severe, it’s worse than any of us admit to, there are a lot of undiagnosed cases that dont get reported,” Brian Brink, medical senior vice president at Anglo Americans South Africa operations, said.