Tossing a rugby ball with Aids orphans and planting trees, Britain’s teenage Prince Harry is showing his caring side during a trip through the impoverished southern African country of Lesotho. ”It’s really good fun to learn about the people here,” he said at a photo opportunity this week. ”It’s not a place that everyone knows much about.”
South Africa’s Apartheid Museum is still evolving in trying to document the country’s brutal past and the complex history of white racist oppression and the black liberation movement. Christopher Till, the director of the museum, said the gut-wrenching images and sounds were reflective of a tough history.
It was not enough for Charles Taylor to plunder his own West African state of Liberia, encourage rebellion in neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire and make Guinea anxious about its own potential for revolution. Taylor also chose to arm and train the notorious Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone, Liberia’s eastern neighbour, in exchange for still-unknown amounts of ”blood diamonds”.
The man entrusted with supervising corpses and body parts donated to the University of California’s prestigious medical school in Los Angeles was arrested at the weekend on suspicion of theft. Henry Reid was arrested after police raided his home and car, carrying out large cartons.
Libya’s international rehabilitation took another step forward at the weekend when a ship carrying the last known remains of its nuclear weapons programme set off for the United States. US officials said the 500-ton cargo included centrifuge parts used to enrich uranium, and equipment from the former uranium conversion facility.
More than 1 000 bird species face extinction because of an alarming and accelerating loss of biodiversity, a study warns on Monday. Environmental degradation could wipe out 1 211 species, an eighth of the world’s total, according to the report by BirdLife International, an umbrella conservation body.
United States troops in Afghanistan are operating outside the rule of law, using excessive force to make arrests, mistreating detainees and holding them indefinitely in a ”legal black hole” without any legal safeguards, a report published on Monday says.
The Zambian government’s anti-retroviral (ARV) drug programme has managed to provide cheap, life-prolonging Aids treatment, but many HIV-positive Zambian women, denied access by a tradition of subservience and sacrifice, are not benefiting. Traditionally women are taught that they should not be a burden to their family.
High levels of South African investment in other African countries are raising fears that this country is becoming the continent’s newest coloniser. Mention South African investment to Tanzanian opposition politicians, say, and you will get an edgy smile as they enquire politely which piece of family silver is being sold off to the Southern carpetbaggers, writes Reg Rumney.
Safety and removing unfit drivers from South Africa’s roads are not the issues behind a two-day minibus taxi strike that started on Monday, organisers said. The strike and a protest march on Monday were to protest against taxi drivers in Gauteng being harassed for not having permits.