Thomas Siebert shifts uncomfortably on the wooden court bench and flinches occasionally at the testimony of the man who sodomised and then strangled his six-year-old son to death 18 months ago. He tries to avoid staring at the 48-year-old killer, Theunis Olivier, instead peering around the courtroom and making occasional notes.
The once secret organisation that led South Africa’s white Afrikaner minority out of the political and economic doldrums into decades of oppressive rule is battling to find a niche for itself. Following its pursuit of exclusive white interests, the Afrikanerbond is finding it hard to justify its past or find a foothold in the present.
When Pam Mokoena heard the sound of gunfire, she didn’t bat an eyelid. Hours later she was cradling the body of the second brother to have been gunned down in South Africa’s murder capital. Pointing to her sibling’s dried blood on the streets of Cape Town’s Nyanga township, Mokoena shakes her head and mumbles: ”Only God knows what is happening here.”
The African National Congress (ANC) is set to confront growing disquiet about the gap between rich and poor at a policy conference this week amid the biggest bout of worker unrest since apartheid. With the ANC due to elect a new leader at the end of the year, the four-day meeting will be partly seen as a test of strength between left-wing and pro-business elements.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) began a meeting on Africa on Wednesday with warnings that the continent faces being left further behind as its growth rates fail to match those elsewhere in the world. Africa is forecast to grow 6,2% in 2007, having achieved 4,9% over five years from 2001 and 5,5% last year alone, said a joint report.
Africa’s political and economic elite will gather under the banner of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Cape Town this week seeking ways to boost growth and trade for the world’s poorest continent. Host President Thabo Mbeki and counterparts will be joined by leading business figures, Cabinet ministers and central bankers for the 17th annual WEF on Africa.
The residents of Imizamo Yethu emerge from corrugated iron shacks every day to one of the breathtaking natural sights that make Cape Town South Africa’s top tourist attraction. From the squalor of their overcrowded existence, the shantytown inhabitants share a spectacular view of the Hout Bay harbour and surrounding mountains with millionaire neighbours.
South Africa’s main opposition party, widely seen as the voice of the white minority, has a rare chance to shake off its conservative image when it elects a new leader this weekend. A black man, a woman and a farmer are all vying for the leadership of the Democratic Alliance (DA) at a party conference near Johannesburg.
The concept of opposition has yet to take root in South Africa 13 years after the birth of multiracial democracy, says the outgoing leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance. Tony Leon’s main task in eight years as official opposition leader was ”to get the very concept itself accepted on the stony soil of South African ground”.
The lush vineyards, rare plant species and breathtaking scenery that have turned the Cape peninsula into a tourist magnet are in danger of withering away within decades if the doomsday predictions of a growing number of scientists — including a major new United Nations report released on Friday — come true.