Nasa called it ”a gift to the nation”. On Tuesday the shuttle Discovery finally blasted off after several days of delays to lend a spectacular fiery flourish to the United States’s Independence Day celebrations. ”I can’t think of a better place to be on the Fourth of July,” said Steve Lindsey, the shuttle commander, moments before Discovery roared into a clear Florida sky.
Uganda has offered a ”total amnesty” to the rebel warlord Joseph Kony, who was indicted by the international criminal court last year for crimes against humanity. The government offered the amnesty in exchange for Kony abandoning the civil war he has waged for the past 19 years, in which his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has slaughtered civilians and abducted thousands of children.
The United Nations Security Council was expected to meet on Wednesday to try to craft a response to the provocative firing of up to six missiles by the North Korean regime. Tuesday’s launch was intended to cause maximum irritation to Washington — timed within minutes of the launch of the shuttle Discovery on Independence Day.
We publish excerpts from the African National Congress national working committee’s (NWC) response to a South African Communist Party central committee discussion document. These excerpts provide a glimpse — but only a glimpse — of the arguments contained in the document, which is more than 7 000 words long.
Mike van Graan, whose latest play is about to open at the Market Theatre, spoke to its new MD, Sibongiseni Mkhize, about the venue’s future.
Phaswane Mpe, who died late last year at 34, was a beloved teacher and an acclaimed writer who brought a new vision to South African literature. Here, in his last interview, he tells Andie Miller about the books that changed his life.
<i>The Exploded View</i> by Ivan Vladislavic, is a collection of four longish short stories, set in the present. Although it is very much a book about Johannesburg, the stories could conceivably happen in any South African city today.
"Sunday August 8 2004; Oswiecim, Poland. I’ve been here before. Once in person, many times in my mind. Even if you’re only a secular Jew, as I am, as Primo Levi was, it’s impossible not to come here in your bad dreams." In preparation for his one-man play <i>Primo</i>, Antony Sher visited Auschwitz.
Marley would never have said that his message was meant only for black people, but his own upbringing ensured it holds particular relevance to those who would have known the pinch of poverty and racism.
Lara Foot-Newton shares her vision for the Baxter Theatre in 2005 with Veronika Peimer-Bednarova.