The documentary on South African President Thabo Mbeki, recently rejected by the state broadcaster, the South Africa Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), sounds like ”something of a left-wing hatchet job”, official opposition communications spokesperson Dene Smuts said on Friday.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday rebuffed calls to declare a state of emergency to stop the country’s economic freefall as it ”would send the wrong signals”. Instead, the cash-strapped country will ”soldier on” and pursue its policy of finding financial partners in Asia, rather than depend on Western aid, Mugabe told the state-owned Herald newspaper.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has painted a gloomy picture of the war-battered country’s health sector, press reports said on Friday, with the country now having just 34 doctors, or just one per 80 000 people. In the late 1980s, there were 400 doctors, she was quoted as telling a just-concluded meeting of aid donors.
The South African government should investigate the disappearance of Pakistani national Khalid Mehmood Rashid, Amnesty International said on Friday. In a letter to President Thabo Mbeki, Amnesty International expressed concern that South African government officials may have participated in the ”enforced disappearance and the return of the Pakistani national”.
Comedian Red Buttons, winner of a best-supporting-role Oscar for <i>Sayonara</i> (1958) with Marlon Brando, died in Los Angeles on Thursday at 87, his spokesperson said. Buttons, whose real name was Aaron Chwatt, died of circulation problems that he had suffered from for several years.
England were ill prepared for the World Cup and will not win the trophy until the Football Association undergoes radical changes, said an Englishman who has lifted the top prize in rugby. ”The FA need to take a long hard look at themselves. Do they even know what has to be done?” said former England rugby coach Clive Woodward.
World-renowned mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson has died in the American state of New Mexico after a years-long battle with breast cancer, opera officials said there on Saturday. Lieberson was known internationally as a captivating "arch-maverick" of an opera singer.
Mary Watson’s short story, <i>Jungfrau</i> (Young Woman) has won her the Caine Prize for African writing.
<b>ANIMATION OF THE WEEK:</b> <i>Cars</i> is a well-rounded and predictable tale filled with excitement at the racetracks, writes Tumi Makgetla.
The remains of the celebrated 18th-century Italian castrato Farinelli have been exhumed to find more about his peculiar powers as a singer, a university professor said on Thursday. The remains were removed from a cemetery in the northern city of Bologna where the singer died in 1782.