Angola’s rebel province of Cabinda is on a difficult search for a settlement to end decades of separatist fighting in this patch of land that is the lifeline of the country’s oil boom. A peace overture from the Angolan government is being received with skepticism — although not rejected — in the poor northern province where offshore oil generates billions of dollars to Luanda’s coffers.
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/ 22 February 2006
Exiled Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide defended on Wednesday his decision to return home in the face of US reluctance, saying it was his right as a citizen of the Caribbean nation. ”I have the right to be back,” Aristide said in an interview with international news agencies in Pretoria.
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/ 9 February 2006
British Prime Minister Tony Blair joins a dozen like-minded leaders at a game lodge in South Africa at the weekend to discuss ways to push for fairer trade rules and advance their shared agenda. The summit marks the seventh gathering of centre-left leaders since the club was created in 1999 by Blair and former United States president Bill Clinton.
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/ 5 February 2006
South African film sensation Tsotsi is winning acclaim with its raw and compassionate depiction of Johannesburg’s criminal underworld, where poverty and HIV/Aids are mainstays of existence. The film tells the story of a 19-year-old ”tsotsi”, or thug, who is confronted with the depravity of his life while caring for a baby found in the back seat of a car he hijacked after shooting the mother.
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/ 23 January 2006
African leaders on Monday opened a summit in Khartoum dominated by a controversial bid from host country Sudan to head the African Union as the pan-African body seeks to end the bloodshed in Darfur. The campaign by Sudan to take over the chairmanship of the 53-nation AU could derail peace efforts in Sudan’s western Darfur region.
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/ 30 December 2005
South Africans are bracing for political storm clouds in 2006 as the ruling African Nations Congress confronts its biggest crisis in more than a decade of power, but an economic boom could spread some sunshine. The turmoil surrounding the fate of former deputy president Jacob Zuma, once a frontrunner to succeed President Thabo Mbeki, has laid bare deep divisions within the ANC.
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/ 25 December 2005
From the slums of Durban, a new movement is giving voice to millions of South Africans living in shacks and increasingly feeling forgotten by the post-apartheid government. Abahlali Base Mjondolo, the Zulu name for shack dwellers, is the largest group to emerge from South Africa’s informal settlements that have mushroomed near cities.
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/ 16 October 2005
United Nations agencies are warning that five million of Malawi’s 12-million people are facing hunger after the worst drought in more than a decade drastically cut production of maize, the staple food in this Southern African country. President Bingu wa Mutharika on Saturday declared the food crisis a national disaster.
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/ 12 October 2005
Martha Nakaramba’s two teenage children are taking turns travelling to nearby Mozambique to bring food home to this drought-stricken area of southern Malawi and care for their 35-year-old mother who is sick with HIV/Aids. Sitting outside her small mud-brick hut, Nakaramba musters enough strength to explain in a barely audible voice that that is how they are coping with the severe food shortages hitting Malawi.
Ronald Matsito has been unable to pick up the pieces since his home of 15 years and his small hardware shop were bulldozed two months ago during the Zimbabwe government’s clean up campaign. ”I can’t see a way forward,” says Matsito (55) a father of five who lives in Mufakose. ”I’ve lost everything.”