Long-ruling Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday castigated opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as being a stooge of the West and vowed he would never rule the country. ”Tsvangirai, you want to rule this country on behalf of [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair,” Mugabe told hundreds of supporters at his party headquarters.
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Jacob Zuma and French arms manufacturer Thint are now waiting for Judge Phillip Levensohn to decide whether to sign a letter asking Mauritius to release documents relating to Zuma’s role in the arms deal. The documents include the 2000 diary of Alain Thetard, former chief executive of Thales International’s South African subsidiary, Thint.
The Freedom Park Trust handed over the remains of four former freedom fighters to their families in Pretoria on Friday, 20 years after their deaths. Harold Sefolo, Andrew Makupe, Jackson Maake and Justice Mbizana, who were suspected of being internal Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) members, were tortured and killed by apartheid-era police in 1987.
Iranian forces seized 15 British Royal Navy personnel who had searched a merchant ship on Friday, Britain said, triggering a diplomatic crisis. Britain said the incident took place in Iraqi waters, where it routinely boards merchant vessels with United Nations permission to search them. The UK Foreign Office summoned Iran’s ambassador.
Shaun de Waal reviews Ian Buruma’s <i>Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance</i>.
Jeremy Pelt is a jazz modernist keenly aware of what keeps jazz timeless, writes Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya.
Arundhati Roy wrote a Booker winner, then became a political activist. Ten years and two court cases later, she has begun a second novel. Randeep Ramesh speaks to the author.
Kopano Matlwa is the winner of the EU Literary Award 2006/07, for her novel <i>Coconut</i>. This is an extract.
Iain Harris, co-creator of the Cape Town Jazz Safari, writes on how musical tourism is playing a vital role in the Mother City.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has expressed its shock at an incident in which a Free State farmer chained two girls to a tree. ”Cosatu is shocked to learn that a farmer in the eastern Free State chained two young girls from Lesotho … to a tree,” Free State and Northern Cape provincial spokesperson Sam Mashinini said on Friday.