Nelson Mandela has filed a lawsuit against a former associate and a businessman for selling forgeries of his artwork for millions of dollars, his lawyer said on Tuesday. The lawsuit targets the elder statesman’s ex-lawyer Ismail Ayob and his business associate Ross Calder, who are accused of selling fake artworks bearing the magic Mandela moniker.
Africa’s last absolute monarch, King Mswati III of Swaziland, celebrated his 37th birthday on Tuesday with a R10,5-million bash amid criticism that his extravagance was bleeding the poverty-stricken and HIV/Aids-afflicted nation dry. ”God has been watching over us since we became independent 37 years ago which is the time I was born,” the king said, speaking in a rich baritone.
South Africa is looking at tougher measures to speed up land reform, which could include challenging prices that white farmers are demanding to cede their property, as part of the drive to address injustices from the apartheid era, a top official said. Black ownership of land has increased from 13% at the end of apartheid in 1994 to 16%.
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/ 6 February 2005
Residents of Zimbabwe’s best-known township harbour no illusions about next month’s elections, with many too busy struggling to survive to ponder what’s at stake. The mood in Chitungwiza, a sprawling and dingy township that is home to nearly two million people, is a mixture of apathy, disgust and hopelessness ahead of the parliamentary polls.
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/ 3 November 2004
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South Africans on Wednesday bemoaned a black day for the world and Africa as George Bush appeared headed for another term in office. ”I have been keeping my fingers crossed that the American people will see some light, finally,” said Amina Cachalia, a prominent anti-apartheid activist and a top campaigner for women’s rights.
SA politicians have their say
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/ 20 October 2004
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert began a four-day visit to South Africa on Wednesday that pro-Palestinian groups denounced as a retreat from the struggle for equality embraced by President Thabo Mbeki’s government. Olmert is the most senior Israeli official to visit South Africa since the end of apartheid a decade ago.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=123892">SA govt defends Israeli leader’s visit</a>
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/ 12 September 2004
Sixty-eight suspected mercenaries including former British soldier Simon Mann begin serving jail sentences this week in Zimbabwe on various convictions related to an alleged plot to stage a coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. But analysts and observers who followed the six-week trial of the men say the proceedings failed to shed light on the alleged plot and that very little hard evidence was introduced in court.
South Africa, riding the wave of a tourism boom, is bracing for record numbers by promoting the neglected African side of one of the world’s most beautiful and culturally diverse nations. The brains behind the strategy is the chief executive officer of South African Tourism Cheryl Carolus, who has shifted the focus from game reserves, wildlife and what she calls the ”pseudo-European” attractions that had been touted so far.
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South African President Thabo Mbeki, set to return to power after Wednesday’s landmark elections, will be under intense pressure to deliver on the Herculean problems of grinding poverty and Aids, analysts say.
Special Report: Elections 2004
Three vulture species in South Asia face imminent extinction due to a powerful drug that makes livestock carcasses fatal for the scavenging birds, ornithologists at a world conference on birds said. The threatened species include the white-rumped vulture, the slender-billed vulture and the Indian vulture.