Leader: Laurent Kabila General area of operations: western and southern Congo. Forces: Armed Forces of the Congo (FAC): 40 000 to 45 000 poor-quality troops, most of them formerly in Mobutu’s army, collected by Kabila and stationed around the country. Angolan armed forces: 2 500 to 3 000, stationed mainly around the diamond mining centre […]

Peter Bradshaw Yugoslavian movie of the week There’s never been a more appropriate time to see a movie set in Serbia, so run, don’t walk, to see Black Cat, White Cat. It is a pungent and gripping gangland comedy by Emir Kusturica (The Time of the Gypsies), about patriarch gypsy godfathers on the banks of […]

`silent killer’, is disastrous Twenty-three year old “Malock” has a two- year-old child and is HIV-positive. Since receiving her test results in December, she has sought counselling and told her boyfriends, all of whom denied being positive. She worries about her daughter’s future. “I want to see her grandchildren but I know that won’t be […]

John Matshikiza speaks to two members of the Manhattan Brothers who have returned to visit South Africa after 38 years in exile `You stayed up late. I left you in the reception when I went to bed,” says Joe Mogotsi to Rufus Khoza. “What were you doing, practising your Zulu or what?” The two old […]

Despite OAU efforts to solve the border crisis, there is little hope of an end to the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Audrey Gillan reports from Mekelle The Ayder school in Mekelle is little more than a collection of breeze-block huts, but it has become one of the Ethiopian government’s most potent propaganda weapons in […]

The most recent novel by Justin Cartwright -once a Wits rugby player -won the Whitbread Prize. He spoke to Nicholas Dawes `I was the Peter Mandelson of my era,” says Justin Cartwright of his years as spin- doctor-in-chief to Britain’s Liberal- Democratic party. He’s joking, of course, but then the Lib-Dems did slip rather rapidly […]

system … Aaron Nicodemus gives South Africa’s health care system a check-up and finds that on the whole the major surgery performed on the system has been successful – except for the Aids policy Five years ago Hellen Mailula (30) of Pietersburg would not have had her baby in a hospital. As part of the […]

passport Barry Streek Dr Mario Ambrosini, the special adviser to Minister of Home Affairs Mangosuthu Buthelezi, is set to be reappointed to his highly paid position in contradiction of rules approved by the Cabinet. Cabinet policy specifies that only South African citizens may be appointed to the position of special adviser. Ambrosini, however, is not […]

CD of the week Dave Chislett When I Died I Was Elvis (Gallo) is the third full-length album release by Johannesburg-based band Sugardrive. In 1997 they released Sand Man Sky, which represented a sudden change in sound from a grunge-rock base to what some saw as a poor imitation of Massive Attack. The fact that […]

South Africa and England are favourites in the race to host the 2006 World Cup. Denis Campbell gives an English view of the bid battle It’s man against boy, statesman against striker, the champion of South Africa’s black majority against the champion of Walker’s cheese and onion crisps. Nelson Mandela, the 80-year-old who ended apartheid, […]