retrenchments Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Final examinations at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) hang in the balance this year following ongoing unrest on the campus. Examinations have been postponed for two weeks, but the administration has not yet set a date for them to begin. In an extraordinary move, UWC’s senate has censured […]

Review of the week Brenda Atkinson There are several possible responses to turn-of-the-century ennui, most of which involve an element of exhausted backlash and sudden nostalgia for other, better times and simpler cultural manifestations. I, for one, am aware of a growing yearning for time-honoured and outdated rituals like thought, beauty and big-band ballroom dancing. […]

borders Gregory Mthembu-Salter `Beware,” reads a sticker, “you may be swallowed by a pothole.” The advice seems apt as our taxi bumps its way from the Zambian copperbelt town of Chingola to the Kasumbalesa Congolese border post. At a roadblock, the policeman argues with the driver. The dispute rages until the policeman gives up. “He […]

LANSANA FOFANA, Freetown | Friday 10.00pm. DOCUMENTS before the High Court in Sierra Leone show that the brutal civil war in that country was funded by Tripoli and that rebels in Sierra Leone, as well as in other West African countries, recieved military training in Libya. The documents came to light at the trial of […]

battleground On October 23 1942, the battle of El Alamein began. James Ambrose Brown, a young soldier, carried into battle a diary in which he recorded the horror of all he saw This year there will be no old soldiers at the graves of comrades who died at the battle of El Alamein. Like those […]

FRANCOIS CASTERAN, Harare | Friday 7.30pm. HEAVY fighting between Angolan government forces and rebel Unita troops has been reported in northern Uije province, where Unita has surrounded the town of the same name. Uije was the last town taken by government forces before United Nations-sponsored peace accords were signed in Lusaka in November 1994 between […]

South Africa Michael Metelits International research organisation Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) plans to drop Malaysia from its emerging markets free index on November 30, a move which could benefit South Africa. MSCI’s move will increase the weighting of other emerging markets in the index. South Africa has the second largest weighting in the index […]

Patrick Bond Share World `It is interesting that at times like this Mr [John Maynard] Keynes is again resurrected,” remarked South African Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel at the meeting with his Commonwealth counterparts in Ottawa at the end of last month. “There is a recognition that the standard prescription for macroeconomic stability and growth […]

The Nobel laureate’s visit to Lagos is the embodiment of hope and as good as a permanent return, Alex Duval Smith reports from Lagos After four years in exile, Nigeria’s most high-profile campaigner against military rule, Wole Soyinka, came home on Wednesday night. All the men and women guarding Lagos airport made sure their fatigues […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 3.30pm. THE new United States ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday voiced US support for President Laurent Kabila, and slammed Rwanda and Uganda for their “military interference” in the country. The comments made by William Swing on national television are the first to be made by a […]