When I was a teenager in the Fifties, very few young girls were sexually active or fell pregnant and, of those who did, suicide was a common “solution”. I fell pregnant at the age of 19 and the reaction from my family pushed me to the point where suicide was something I considered as a means of escape, writes Joan Dommisse.
On instruction from Premier Ebrahim Rasool, Senior Superintendent Jeremy Veary was made station commander in Mitchells Plain in April this year to head one of the most difficult police stations in the Western Cape. Mitchells Plain is bigger than Bloemfontein, covering a vast area between the R300 highway and False Bay. It is home to about 1,7-million people — yet it has only one police station.
After three days sitting in a dusty clearing, Ibrahim is beginning to wonder if a European tourist will ever hire one of his camels for a tour of the rose-lined boulevards of Marrakesh. ”The number of visitors has dwindled to nothing in the past week,” said the 21-year-old Moroccan, his lips pale and dry in the summer heat. ”I’ve been waiting for three days but not a single tourist has come for a ride.
Political diaries can be a damn good read — and they can also deepen our understanding of how power works. How nice by now to have had an insider’s account of the Mandela administration, or Mbeki’s. What a pity that someone like Pallo Jordan or Kader Asmal has not mustered the energy to produce a political memoir that sheds light on the choices made in the early years of democracy.
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Madagascar’s President Marc Ravalomanana has dissolved his country’s National Assembly ahead of elections he said would be held by the end of September. In a letter dated July 17 and addressed to the Constitutional Court, but only made public on Tuesday, Ravalomanana said Parliament no longer reflected national representation.
Twelve Romanians died and firefighters, soldiers and volunteers battled wildfires across south-eastern Europe on Tuesday as a heatwave broke temperature records across the Balkans. There was a blackout in many parts of Macedonia and some parts of Albania and northern Greece. In Romania, new deaths pushed the toll from the heatwave up to 30.
Ethiopia on Tuesday gave the Red Cross a week to leave the Ogaden region in the country’s volatile east, saying the aid group had been talking to rebels who operate there. The Red Cross workers ”are interfering with the political situation”, said Jama Ahmed, a vice-president of the Somali region.
Zaphanias Mathe, the father of prison escapee Annanias Mathe, was released from jail after the state withdrew all charges against him on Tuesday. An attorney at the Oliveira Serrao law firm, Nereyde Namitete, said the toxicology report found that the substance that the older Mathe tried to smuggle inside the C-Max prison in Pretoria contained nothing illegal.
Astana team leader Alexander Vinokourov failed a dope test after winning Saturday’s Tour de France time trial, his team announced on Tuesday. They did not give any further details but a cycling source said the Kazakh, who has won two stages on this year’s Tour, tested positive for blood doping.