Beyond its chronic and potentially fatal medical and demographic dimensions, Aids is a social, cultural and political phenomenon. There are no easy solutions, no easy answers to the questions the pandemic poses. Anthony Egan looks at three books that attempt to address the issue.
As Malawi’s courts grapple with the electoral challenge lodged by the opposition Mgwirizano coalition to last week’s poll, the country’s new President, Bingu wa Mutharika, is trying to win hearts and minds with talk of poverty alleviation and corruption busting. "Malawi is not a poor country," he said at his swearing-in ceremony.
A party at i-shebeen Madiba in Brooklyn, New York, usually features live South African music, the exuberant restaurant owner Mark Henegan and the lively denizens of Fort Greene, one of Brooklyn’s most ethnically mixed neighbourhoods. On May 2 the restaurant was packed with South African filmmakers celebrating the end of <i>Ten Years of Freedom: Films From the New South Africa</i>, writes Bronwyn Law-Viljoen.
Several hundred unarmed army reservists in Madagascar on Friday barricaded Parliament and said they were taking lawmakers hostage to press for long-standing demands they be paid for backing President Marc Ravalomanana during the country’s political crisis in 2002.
An international rescue operation for Haiti and the Dominican Republic gathered pace as the death toll from flash floods rose sharply to about 1 500 dead and missing. The United Nations and other aid agencies were trying to get water and medical supplies to the worst hit towns, but bad weather held up efforts.
South Africa’s public protector has rapped the National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka over the knuckles for announcing last year that Deputy President Jacob Zuma would not be charged. Ngcuka had issued a press statement on August 23 last year which said that there was ”a prima facie case of corruption” against Zuma but that he would not be prosecuted.
A small South African-owned plane crashed on Friday in poor weather in central China, with the pilot, the only person on board, presumed dead, aviation officials said. ”It was a small plane carrying just one pilot. It belonged to South Africa. There were two planes that were in China for an air show,” said Huang Suihua, an official from the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
A white farmer went before Zimbabwe’s top court on Thursday to challenge parts of the controversial land reform laws under which his property was seized and given to black farmers. George Quinnell and his wife, who owned a farm north of Harare, have been deprived of their only source of income since they were forced to leave their land in December 2002.
Firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr criticised Iraq’s supreme Shiite Muslim authority during his sermon on Friday delivered by an aide in Kufa after clashes erupted between militiamen and United States troops. Mainstream Shiite leaders have remained largely silent over fighting in Najaf.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=67015">Iraqi politicians secure deal in Najaf</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=67008">US pulls out of Najaf after truce offer</a>
Cape Town has switched on to MyWireless technology — or broadband wireless high-speed, no-limit internet access via regulated high-powered radio frequency — Sentech said in a statement on Thursday. Sentech, a state-owned but commercially run TV and radio signal distributor, launched MyWireless in Gauteng in January.