On Friday July 14 1985, a scraggly new publication was offered for sale on random street corners in Johannesburg. Its appearance was unexpected, particularly by those who had produced it. Sober observers predicted its likely demise before the month’s end. This modest event would long have passed from memory, were it not for one inexplicable fact: the newspaper is still with us, writes Irwin Manoim, joint founder and editor of the <i>Weekly Mail</i>.
In bitter twist of irony the opposition Kenya African National Union (Kanu) — which viciously cracked down on dissent when it was in power — this week came out in support of mass action. Meanwhile, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and his government declared demonstrations illegal and ordered the security forces to use the "necessary means" to end protests.
When Nigerian reporter Isioma Daniel heard that a <i>fatwa</i>, or Islamic ruling, had been issued against her, she "felt calm … then realised that there was no going back". "Was I scared? I didn’t sleep too well that night," she wrote in a February 2003 article published by <i>The Guardian</i> about her case.
Countries of the northern Sahel region are preparing to deal with more locust swarms in the next few weeks, having barely survived a plague of biblical proportions last year. The hoppers are breeding in north-east Algeria, southern Senegal and Guinea, and are moving eastwards. Some of the insects have already been sighted in Sierra Leone and they are also reportedly breeding in Ethiopia.
Airports Company of South Africa (Acsa) chief executive officer Monhla Hlahla says it is okay for her to have a shareholding in two companies that are major service providers to Acsa because her shareholding is too small for it to constitute a conflict of interest. Acsa is 75% state-owned, 20% being owned by Aeroporti di Roma (AdR), a Rome-headquartered company that has the option to buy a further 10%.
United States President George W Bush has agreed to aid India’s civilian nuclear power programme, an unexpected decision that reverses three decades of American policies designed to deter nations from developing nuclear weapons. The agreement is the first exception to the international bar on nuclear assistance to any country that does not accept monitoring of all of its nuclear facilities.
Adi Barkan, an Israeli photographer and model agent, became acutely aware of the pervasiveness of anorexia when he interviewed 12 000 females, aged 13 to 24, in a televised search for Israel’s next supermodel. He estimated that between 35% and 40% of these aspiring models were anorexic. This realisation persuaded him to launch a crusade to combat it within his industry.
Opponents of Ariel Sharon’s plan to evacuate thousands of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and parts of the northern West Bank faced a double setback on Wednesday when police and soldiers continued to pen protesters inside a campsite and a parliamentary vote to delay disengagement failed. About 10 000 anti-disengagement protesters were corralled behind a fence at the site at Kefar Maymon.
A campaign of political persecution is being waged against Zanu-PF politicians aligned to Rural Housing and Social Amenities Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, the Mail & Guardian has learnt. The current tension, which has its genesis in the power struggle over President Robert Mugabe’s successor, has triggered speculation about a split in the 42-year-old party.
Only four days before President George W Bush chose him as his nominee for the Supreme Court, John Roberts ruled to give the administration a free hand in holding military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, critics claimed this week. Bush sent his candidate to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet senators who will ultimately decide Judge Roberts’s confirmation.