I write to register my outrage as a citizen, an African and an artist at the worsening repression in Zimbabwe. The arrest of journalists, the shutting down of the independent press and the violent intimidation of the judiciary and opposition make a sham of the government’s claim to be legitimate.

The US produces a quarter of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, the population has risen by 100-million since 1970 and when more than 200-million acres of state land were recently opened up for mining, drilling, logging and road building, no one took much notice. What does the Bush administration do? It ignores all attempts to curb environmental damage.

”The lights of Johannesburg stretch before me as the plane dives for landing. My friends’ warnings about the dangers of Johannesburg start working on my imagination.’You mustn’t go. They will rob you in broad daylight,’ Olav André Manum was warned before leaving for Johannesburg.

For how can it be that a man, rumours of whose moral and political death had preceded him, is now the darling of ANC party structures (so much so that he has secured the second highest parliamentary list nomination)? Forget about the bribe allegation against Zuma. There is unchallenged evidence against him elsewhere, argues Stefaans Brümmer.