The final instalment: Prof De Crespigny tells how he lied, first to UCT, then to his national intelligence interrogators.

Secret documents show that the British secret service, MI5, was deeply involved in setting up and training South Africa’s notorious Special Branch from the earliest days of the apartheid system. This while the British Government was officially outraged by apartheid. Another case of “perfidious Albion”?

President Mbeki’s ideal of the African Renaissance has been hyped like a white heavyweight boxer. But where’s the beef? Supposedly in the Millenium Africa Plan, appropriately known as MAP. Drawn up in consultation with foreign governments, MAP has thus far been something of a mystery. noseweek has seen some of the secret draft documents on the plan - and we give you a preview of Africa’s great white hope.

Sol Kerzner tried one of his Bantustan-style deals with the Mohegan tribe and their casino in Connecticut. But now that deal may come back to haunt him, and Sun International. The Mohegans are after Sol’s scalp. And apart from damage to SI’s reputation in the US, there is the chance that a US court could order Kersaf, the JSE-listed shareholder in SI, to repay an amount to the Mohegan tribe equal to three times Kersaf’s operating profit for the year to June 2000.

Audrey Sidebotham was a great party gal, a generous spirit, with oodles of joie de vivre and a tidy nest egg. She was also fond of whisky, a taste she shared with the vet who treated her beloved bulldog Lucy. Soon the vet was prescribing the Schedule 5 sleeping pill Dormicum to Audrey, especially dangerous when used long-term and when combined with alcohol. Gradually the fun went out of the old lady’s life. And when she passed away, her will came as a nasty shock to friends and family.

Many of those involved in Cell C’s bid for the third cellular operator licence have also featured in noseweek’s coverage of the arms deal, the Shaik brothers, Yusuf Surtee, and Lambert Moloi among them. And some in the government seem prepared to go to great lengths to make sure that Cell C wins the bid regardless of the merits. The judge in charge of the judicial review of the licence award was even heard to call Minister of Communications, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, a liar. He later withdrew the unguarded comment. But what’s going on?

Just because the President is paranoid doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a plot. Steve Tshwete’s extraordinary outburst was, after all, the result of an intense power struggle and propaganda war within the ANC.