PRESIDENT Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique has invited Zimbabwe’s commercial white farmers, threatened by farms invasions and seizures in their country, to settle in his country. Mozambique needs the expertise of experienced farmers to boost its food production, Chissano told the current session of the World Economic Forum’s southern Africa meeting in Durban. About 40 white […]

A TWIN-SUMMIT of heads of state and government of central Africa opened on Friday in Libreville with five heads of state from the sub-region attending. Scheduled to begin on Thursday, the Central African Economic and Monetary Community and the Economic Community of Central African States summits were delayed for 24 hours due to the late […]

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 […]