Vidal justifies injustice I agree with John Vidal (“The hypocrisy of Mugabe’s critics”, July 8) when he labels the West hypocritical. Robert Mugabe escaped censure when he slaughtered 20 000 people in Matabeleland in the 1980s because of the West’s double standards. But does the fact that the World Bank-funded projects requiring the eviction of […]
The billionaire Russian metals tycoon Oleg Deripaska ignited a political row on Thursday after it emerged he is planning to buy a ,7-million dacha that belonged to the former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. The two-storey luxury dacha where Stalin relaxed by the Black Sea is situated in Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia republic and Georgian politicians were enraged by news of the intended purchase.
A special United Nations envoy sent to investigate Zimbabwe’s controversial campaign of shack demolitions praised President Robert Mugabe’s government for its ”vision”, the state-run Herald newspaper claimed on Friday.
Downing Street hailed a promise by United States President George Bush to double aid to Africa on Thursday, saying it helped British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s big goal of boosting aid to Africa by bn by 2010. But Bush’s offer, centering initially on a ,2-billion injection to cut malaria deaths in half by 2010, was greeted sceptically by aid agencies.
Porta Farm, a well-known slum west of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, resembled a village hit by an aerial attack as it was visited late on Thursday by United Nations special envoy Anna Tibaijuka. Mounds of brick rubble, plastic sheeting, broken asbestos and smashed furniture were all that remained of the homes of 1Â 500 families.
Fewer than 1 000 children infected with HIV/Aids in KwaZulu-Natal are currently receiving anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment, it was reported on Friday.The figures were revealed at the Medical Research Council KwaZulu-Natal Aids Forum in Pietermaritzburg this week.
Black-clad riot police fired tear gas and beat demonstrators with batons as thousands protested delays to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s first postwar
presidential elections. The United Nations said at least six died in violence nationwide.
King Mayitjha III of the Ndebele nation died on Thursday night, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported early on Friday. The Nzunza/Mabhoko royal house spokesperson, Chief John Mahlangu, said the king had attended the Nhlapo Commission on traditional leadership in KwaMhlanga earlier in the day.
There was much ululating as President Thabo Mbeki and former deputy president Jacob Zuma entered this week’s gathering of the African National Congress’s policy conference. One was the overall leader of the country as well as the party while the other had fallen from political grace after being ”released” as the country’s deputy president by Mbeki before a joint sitting of Parliament.
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Jacob Zuma will be in breach of his bail conditions if he consults with former judge Willem Heath, media reports said on Friday. Heath’s name was apparently added to prosecutor Anton Steynberg’s comprehensive list of state witnesses late on Wednesday. Heath is former head of the Special Investigating Unit.