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/ 29 January 2009
The first witness at the ICC’s inaugural war-crimes trial retracted his testimony on Wednesday after saying he was a former child soldier.
South African President Thabo Mbeki’s failure to criticise neighbouring Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe has weakened his international stature, analysts said. Once hailed as a leader focussed on Africa’s revival, Mbeki’s silence on Zimbabwe has been blamed either on misplaced loyalty or crippling deference.
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/ 17 February 2008
A draft loyalty pledge has plunged South Africa into a new identity crisis as it mulls its common values 14 years after discarding apartheid to forge a united society under a single flag. As the motley rainbow nation quibbles over a government proposal to introduce a pledge of allegiance in schools, some ideological battle lines are being redrawn.
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/ 13 February 2008
South Africa has been plunged into a fresh debate over the racial make-up of its sports teams 14 years after the country emerged from apartheid. As the cricket squad prepared on Wednesday to fly to Bangladesh after a furious row over the dearth of black players in its line-up, white rugby legends protested against government pressure on selectors to put colour ahead of ability
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/ 27 January 2008
A guard in a surgical mask patrols a wire fence designed to keep dozens of patients with a lethal form of tuberculosis at Cape Town’s Brooklyn Chest hospital isolated from the rest of the world. Sufferers of extreme drug resistant tuberculosis, a near untreatable strain, battle boredom, depression and the side-effects of a daily palmful of pills.
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/ 21 January 2008
His chosen vocation ridiculed by peers and elders alike, South African teenager Andile Ndlovu remains unwavering in his ambition to become a world-class ballet dancer. One of a small pool of black, male practitioners of an art considered by many to be the domain of whites and the rich, Ndlovu is doing what he can to popularise ballet in his community.
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/ 12 January 2008
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Judicial autonomy in South Africa’s young democracy will be put to the test as politicians and judges eye each other with growing distrust ahead of the graft trial of African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma. His backers say there is no chance of Zuma getting a fair trial from a judiciary which is still largely male and white.
Peter de Villiers made history on Wednesday by being named as the first black coach of the world-champion Springbok rugby team, before making clear he would pick his teams based on merit, not colour. De Villiers, currently coach of the Under-21 side, was the surprise choice of the South African Rugby Union to succeed Jake White.
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/ 13 December 2007
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President Thabo Mbeki risks being cast aside by his party next week in favour of an arch rival who may yet be charged with corruption. Mbeki still has two years left as head of state but analysts say a defeat at the hands of Jacob Zuma in the African National (ANC) Congress leadership contest could leave him a lame duck.
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/ 9 December 2007
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As the African National Congress prepares for its elective conference in Polokwane on December 16, satirists have not run short of gags designed to cut the party’s members down to size. ”The satirist in South Africa today has become probably more of a psychiatrist than an entertainer,” says comedian Pieter-Dirk Uys.