TANZANIA’S Prime Minister Frederick Sumaye has warned of severe food and water shortages in many parts of the country due to prolonged drought. Sumaye told parliamentarians in Dodoma in central Tanzania that 13 of 20 mainland regions have been affected due to dry spells, and that a preliminary assessment revealed a food deficit of 680940 […]
LIBYA has welcomed a decision by the United States government to cease classifying Libya and six other countries as “rogue states”. The United States earlier this week dropped the use of the term “rogue state” from its foreign policy lexicon in favor of the broader categorization “state of concern”. US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher […]
THE Truth Commission’s Amnesty Committee has granted amnesty to former Minister of Police Adriaan Vlok, former Police Commissioner General Johannes Van Der Merwe and nine security policemen for their role in several bomb scares at cinema theatres around the country. The bomb scares, which all occurred in July 1988, were designed to prevent the film […]
Luvuyo Kakaza THEATRE The toll of apartheid on South Africa’s domestic workers has been well documented in literature, in television documentaries and in fiction film. These days, though, it’s rare to find a stage interpretation of the lives of household “servants”. But one is currently playing that could very well bring some guilty “madams” close […]
Ross Garland A SECOND LOOK In 1920 the world-beating Chicago White Sox baseballers stunned the United States by revealing that they had thrown the World Series of 1919. The World Series, that pinnacle of baseball achievement, was won that year by the Cincinnati Reds. After the disappearance of crucial evidence, eight players were acquitted by […]
David Beresford ANOTHER COUNTRY The worst moment of my life came when I was about 15 years old and at boarding school. Two prefects came through to my dormitory and said the housemaster wanted to see me. I walked into his study to be told my brother was dead. The next clear memory I have […]
Michel D Kazatchkine and Didier Fassin The controversy generated by President Thabo Mbeki’s statements on the role of HIV as the causal agent of Aids has led some investigators to question their participation in the forthcoming 13th international conference on Aids to be held in Durban in the second week of July. In a letter […]
Ivor Powell South Africa’s plans to send a peacekeeping force to the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo could be scuppered by the refusal of senior army officers to command the force. Military sources said this week that the army had not been able to identify a single experienced field commander of the required rank of […]
Howard Barrell A Security Council resolution has given South Africa a brief respite from having to make good its various undertakings to provide military support personnel – and perhaps combat troops as well – for the United Nations peace support mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The council has decided to suspend any further […]
hard place Marianne Merten The University of Stellenbosch is fighting a battle on two fronts: not only is it trying to convince black students that it is no longer a Broederbond bastion, but it is also struggling to honour its commitment to remain a centre of the Afrikaans language. After taking office in 1993, rector […]