An envoy for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has arrived in Zimbabwe to investigate a so-called urban renewal campaign that has destroyed the homes and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans. Opposition parties say the blitz is intended to punish its supporters who voted against the government in recent parliamentary elections.
President Thabo Mbeki paid tribute on Sunday to the ”mighty legions of the freedom fighters” who sacrificed their lives to free South Africans from apartheid. Mbeki said it would take time to see the demands contained in the Freedom Charter become fully realised in the same way as it took a long time to achieve liberation.
Deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said on Sunday she was not concerned about public money ending up in ANC coffers during the so-called Oilgate scandal. ”That’s none of my business. That’s a transaction between Imvume,” she told the South African Broadcasting Corporation in an interview on Sunday.
Robert Mugabe’s government suspects that asylum seekers being sent back by Britain are spies, Zimbabwe’s main opposition claimed on Sunday. The claim came as the row over the UK government’s policy of returning many refugees continued, with immigration detainees saying that they fear death or torture if deported.
The United States defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, on Sunday warned that the insurgency in Iraq could go on for at least a decade and confirmed that the army had been in contact with some of its leaders in an attempt to quell the violence.
A large crowd converged at Beyers Naude Square in Johannesburg on Monday to join the Congress of SA Trade Unions’ protest against unemployment and job losses. Singing struggle songs, members of the red T-shirted crowd carried posters reading ”Yes to local procurement. No to Edcon group” and ”Stop casualisation and racism”.
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A traditional circumcision surgeon was arrested and 28 young boys rescued from his house in Libode in the Eastern Cape on Sunday, a spokesperson for the provincial health department said. ”The suspect allegedly used one unsterilised knife to circumcise all the boys,” Sizwe Khuphelo said.
As he stepped blinking into the glare of the cramped courtroom, a crowd of bereaved mothers confronted Nurpashi Kulayev, the last surviving militant from the gang that seized School Number One in Beslan, screaming: ”Beast! Child-killer!”
Thousands of people cheered when former deputy president Jacob Zuma arrived at the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication in Soweto on Sunday to mark the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Charter. A large TV screen above the square showed Zuma smiling and hugging people as he arrived at the venue.