The global image of the American school was once of wholesome youths laden with books and cheerleader pompoms. More recently it has become one of over-armed and overweight policemen racing to take up firing positions while students run screaming with terror.
One must ask if Zimbabwe’s white farmers deserved their fate. And did their workers, so well manipulated by political deceit, deserve to be left homeless and suffering? The answers are both yes and no. Land-hungry peasants have been used as instruments of a gigantic kleptocracy led by Mugabe and his cronies.
Alex Ferguson is confident his Manchester United squad will hold their nerve to close out the Premiership title battle after watching them edge closer to the finishing line with a clinical win over struggling Sheffield United. The United manager was unhappy with the challenge by Colin Kazim-Richards that sent Patrice Evra to hospital for a scan on a calf injury.
”It turns out that I’m not the first man delivered to the police chief on the back of this pickup. The last one was a labourer, caught overcharging for the farmer’s tomatoes at the local market.” On the border between Zimbabwe and Mozambique, Mark Ashurst observes an unwritten constitution at work.
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The son of a Johannesburg metro police officer was stabbed outside Greenside High School on Wednesday after four boys robbed his 14-year-old cousin, the boy’s father said. Senior metro officer Simon Motlhakoana said his 17-year-old son, Moeketsi, was stabbed with a knife above the right ear by a 20-year-old youth from Malvern High School in Kensington.
President Thabo Mbeki will host talks with his Singaporean counterpart, President Sellapan Ramanathan, in Pretoria on Thursday. Ramanathan, who is the first Singaporean president to visit South Africa, arrived in the country on Wednesday. High on their agenda are trade and economic relations between the two countries, said the Foreign Affairs Department in a statement.
Ethiopia must withdraw its troops from Somalia immediately or face an all-out war that ”no army” could resist, three senior Somali leaders warned on Wednesday. The three, including top Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Hussein Aidid, who holds a post in Somalia’s government, were meeting in the Eritrean capital for talks.
Officials at Virginia Tech faced tough questions on Wednesday as to why a student behind the worst mass shooting in United States history remained at the school although local police knew he was troubled and despite repeated complaints from fellow students and staff.
The Johannesburg home of Gauteng’s provincial minister of health Brian Hlongwa was robbed and four family members held up on Tuesday night, police said. ”I can confirm that yesterday [Tuesday] evening about 8.30pm in the Sandton area four family members were held up and household items were taken,” police said.