Patekile Holomisa A SECOND LOOK One of the ironies of post-colonial Africa is the ease with which its new rulers find comfort within the governance systems of their former oppressors, while they all invariably seem not to know what to do with the indigenous systems that have somehow managed to survive the colonial onslaught. There […]

Reports by Jubie Matlou, Connie Selebogo, Evidence wa ka Ngobeni, Khadija Magardie and Sharon Hammond When she woke at 5am on Thursday to see her husband off for work, Nozipho Mjoli saw no danger in the stream that usually flowed about 100m from her shack. But a few hours later, after having returned to bed, […]

While the mothers of Westbury counsel one another, their daughters have found their own forms of association, writes Khadija Magardie They have suffered. For decades the mothers, daughters, wives and grandmothers of Westbury have borne the brunt of the frustrations and broken dreams of the community’s men. Violence, rape, domestic assault and even murder of […]

champions Bob Woolmer FROM THE PAVILION Australia is the dominant side in world cricket at the moment. South Africa are in transition, England too, while Pakistan and India are full of Eastern promise but short on fulfilling that promise. As soon as there is any bounce in the pitch they are found wanting. The West […]

Mercedes Sayagues The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) rally in Mbare township ends peacefully at 3.30pm. I am waiting for a lift into town with an MDC candidate when a group of young men arrives. One is badly wounded – gashes on his head and lips, broken teeth, his shorts spattered with blood. He says […]

AMNESTY International warned on Thursday that the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo is intent on killing 61 prisoners despite promises not to carry out further executions. “These 61 men now face an imminent appearance before the firing squad after being convicted by a military court in proceedings that contravene international standards of fair […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Lagos | Friday 8.45am. AS the country mourns the exit of Bafana Bafana from the African Cup of Nations, Nigeria has revealed that a tactical blunder – and some sharp thinking by the hosts – led to the demise of the South Africans. Bafana were totally outclassed 2-0 in the semi-finals against the […]

THE United States said it has reached agreement with the West African nation Burkina Faso on an “open skies” pact that will allow unrestricted air service between the two countries. US Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater said the agreement was initialed in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on Wednesday and marked the first agreement between the United States […]

Peter Dickson Surrounded by a depressing cocktail of shantyland and industria, its dark corridors almost endless and with stray goats grazing at its doorstep in the menacing Friday night shadow of gangsters, Port Elizabeth’s Dora Ngiza hospital is where babies are turned away to die. Every day at the hospital, battling to stretch limited finances […]

Chris McGreal The family of the executed Nigerian writer, Ken Saro-Wiwa, is at odds with the organisation he once led over plans to exhume and rebury him and eight other Ogoni activists hanged after a show trial in 1995. Saro-Wiwa’s eldest son, Ken Wiwa, has objected to the creation of a “burial committee” by the […]