Thuli Nhlapo While most ordinary men shy away from discussing girls’ issues in public, the King of the Zulu nation, Goodwill Zwelithini, and his loyal subjects still believe in the tradition of the annual reed dance where he proclaims girls’ graduation to womanhood. Traditionally, the king was expected to choose a wife from among the […]

A recent report on Afrikaans in higher education has important implications for other indigenous languages, argues Gerrit Brand The draft recommendations of the Gerwel Advisory Committee on Afrikaans in Higher Education have evoked a lot of reaction, both positive and negative, in the Afrikaans community. Yet the other language communities in South Africa do not […]

food Valentine Cascarino At first I was convinced it was a hangover that triggered the feeling I was back in Paris. But when I returned to the newly established Congolese Restaurant in Yeoville two weeks later, French tourists dining with me felt the same way. With kwasa kwasa music constantly vibrating in the background, the […]

Maggie Davey recalls the tragic “glamour” of war In the south of Uzbekistan the old Soviet railroad ran alongside the Afghanistan border for a stretch. Since the late 1800s after the Russian conquest of Tashkent and Samarkand, this railroad system, with the Transcaspian system, fed central Asia with both soldiers and the humdrum requirements of […]

Julia Finch and Jill Treanor The full financial toll of last week’s terrorist attacks started to become apparent this week as a stream of big companies across Europe and the United States warned of sharp falls in sales and profits. The deluge of bad corporate news from more than 50 companies in the US alone […]

The following is a translation of the text of an edict issued by an Afghan grand Shura, or council, of Islamic clerics in Kabul on Thursday. “This meeting of ulema [scholars] expresses its anguish and sorrow over the attacks in the United States and hopes that America will not launch any attack against Afghanistan, and […]

“Further consultation over proposed amendments to the Constitution is needed” Barry Streek In an unusual move, the African National Congress head of Parliament’s local government committee, Yunus Carrim, has publicly urged further consultation on planned constitutional changes that have controversial implications for local government. Carrim’s intervention signals for the first time that the ANC is […]

Support for the United States could spark a hardline uprising in Pakistan Rory McCarthy In a stuffy room on the third floor of an ageing hotel in a smart Lahore suburb sat the men who threaten to bring Pakistan to its knees. More than 50 of the nation’s most hardline clerics met on Monday to […]

In the bewildering days after Tuesday, I felt anger against the US’s self-righteous proclamations, overlaid with a religious veneer. How would five decades of US atrocities around the world, I asked people, compare to Tuesday’s atrocity? What about a look at the less respectable things America has done over the past 50 years, to see […]

There is a growing malaise in higher education, and it is damaging core academic functions. David Macfarlane reports Pessimistic about their academic futures, stressed in their jobs, and oppressed by newly bureaucratic modes of management, significant numbers of academics are opting out, or trying to. This is leaving tertiary institutions seriously stretched in their ability […]