The year is 1961. Tanzania is free and the British nurses are leaving the country in dozens. The ANC, despite its recent banning and massive security clamp down, agree to help by recruiting nurses in South Africa. Albertina Sisulu recruits volunteers from Johannesburg, Mduduzi George Mbele and John Makhathini organise the Durban group, and the late Govan Mbeki pulls together a group from
Port Elizabeth.

Children are being used as soldiers ”on a massive scale” around the world, with groups in 15 countries handing weapons to youngsters in armed conflict, according to a UN report. Despite international efforts to ensure that children under the age of 18 do not take part in hostilities, the report names 22 new groups fighting in Burundi, Colombia, Congo, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Myanmar, Sudan and Uganda.

It hit me looking up at the chipped cornice of the Parthenon over a plate of roasted eel: I had fallen well and truly in love. There was no mistaking it. Strolling up Dionysiou Areopagitou into the freshly paved historic heart of Athens, I felt quite euphoric.

The Bush administration has given the US justice department’s civil rights division the job of enforcing a contentious new ban on late-term abortions, it emerged yesterday. The move has provoked furious accusations that the White House is perverting the government’s role in promoting civil rights.

Nearly one in four French people are on tranquillisers, antidepressants, antipsychotics or other mood-altering prescription drugs, according to an alarming report published yesterday.

New Zealand dominated play and slowly chipped away at a resolute but tiring South African defence on Saturday to beat the Springboks 29-9 and advance to the Rugby World Cup semifinals. Centre Leon MacDonald scored all of New Zealand’s 13 first-half points on a try, conversion and two penalties.

What makes a team turn up for the most important game of its life listless, disinterested and lacking in all the aggressive fundamentals that make rugby a game worth playing? That’s what happened to the Springboks against New Zealand as the tigers of the final pool match against Samoa turned into poodles at the quarterfinal stage of the World Cup.

Johnnic Communications, publishers of the Sunday Times said in a statement on Saturday that the editor of the Sunday Times, Mathatha Tsedu, has been fired. Tsedu, who is also Sanef chairperson, has been editor of newspaper for just over a year.

The Hefer Commission has released the names of some of the 20 people subpoenaed to testify or provide documents following the resumption of the commission on Wednesday. The list is likely to put the commission on a collision course with those agencies which have, until now, been reluctant to grant the commission access to documents or personnel.