South Africa
South Africa: Judge exonerates Dr. Death
By John Farmer, April 23, 2002
The last major trial relating to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) ended in a failure to prosecute on April 11. Dr. Wouter Basson, known as “Dr. Death”, a chem...
South African asbestos victims win compensation, but claim halved
By Neil Hodge, January 9, 2002
A four-year legal battle to call a UK company to account for its asbestos mining practices in South Africa three decades ago ended shortly before Christmas, with a £21 million out-of-court settlement...
South Africa: ANC government pushes through draconian anti-terrorism legislation
By Barbara Slaughter, November 9, 2001
The South African government has used the September 11 attacks in the US in order to push through new anti-terrorism legislation reminiscent of the draconian laws of the apartheid era. Ministry of Saf...
South African report shows devastating impact of HIV/AIDS
By Barry Mason, October 22, 2001
South Africa’s Medical Research Council (MRC) has only just released its report drawn up in July, “The Impact of HIV/AIDS on Adult Mortality in South Africa”.
Reply to a defender of the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party
October 11, 2001
We reproduce below a letter criticising an earlier correspondent’s email about the ANC, together with a response by Barbara Slaughter.
South Africa: President Mbeki again downplays AIDS epidemic
By Barbara Slaughter, September 17, 2001
President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa has written to Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, ordering her to consider a cut in the AIDS budget. He claims to have discovered World Health Organisation...
AIDS campaigners sue South African government
By Barry Mason, August 29, 2001
On August 21, the South African Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) sued the government in an attempt to force it to make available anti-HIV drugs that TAC estimates could save 35,000 new born babies a ye...
South Africa: ANC government evicts poor squatters
By Chris Talbot, July 13, 2001
Bailiffs have begun to evict hundreds of homeless poor people attempting to take over an area of barren land at Bredell, near Johannesburg, South Africa. Riot police with armoured cars backed the bail...
South Africa: Report cites faulty fan in mine explosion
By our correspondent, May 24, 2001
A preliminary accident report showed that a critically important extractor fan had been faulty for nine consecutive days before the May 8 explosion at Gold Fields' Beatrix gold mine in Free State, Sou...
Twelve die in South African gold mine disaster
By Barbara Slaughter, May 10, 2001
Twelve mineworkers were killed in an explosion at the Beatrix gold mine on Tuesday May 8, in South Africa's worst mining disaster in two years.
South African football stampede kills 43
By Barry Mason, April 14, 2001
Forty-three people died and around 250 were injured at the Ellis Park football stadium in Johannesburg on the night of Wednesday April 11, as people poured into a stadium that was already full to over...
Swiss Company accused of poisoning workers in South Africa
By Trevor Johnson, April 7, 2001
Four of the 120 workers fired from the South African operations of the transnational mining corporation Xstrata because they were ill, have died of vanadium poisoning. They fell ill while processing c...
