Vanessa Cooke, director of the newly relocated Market Theatre Laboratory in Johannesburg, talks to GLYNIS O’HARA Over 150 000 primary school children nationwide have seen Broken Dreams, a play workshopped and written by Zakes Mda to help them ward off and deal with child abuse and prevent the spread of TB and AIDS. The play […]

Questions are being asked about Thabo Mbeki’s deal with the police commissioners over the truth commission, reports Stefaans BrUmmer Truth commission investigators have been left frustrated by an “intervention” of Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and Safety and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi which they say gave former police generals a strategic breather before they face tough […]

Eddie Koch EVIDENCE in Colonel Eugene de Kock’s mitigation hearing suggests clandestine support from the police for Inkatha paramilitary units to attack ANC supporters in the early 1990s — long after the movement was unbanned — was not a maverick operation by members of the Vlakplaas unit for personal gain. De Kock told the court […]

Richard Thomas in London The World Bank is privately warning that Haitian peasants could be forced to emigrate in order to find jobs, in stark contrast to the bank’s public endorsement of a “people first” development strategy. Ahead of the bank’s annual meeting in Washington in a fortnight’s time, aid agencies said the disclosure would […]

Australia’s grand old matriarch of contemporary painting Emily Kame Kngwarreye was kept working until she dropped, reports Anthea Gerrie THE extraordinary army of spongers who lived off the talents of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Australia’s foremost contemporary painter, are looking for a new meal ticket after her. Emily’s talent was milked by her extended family for […]

Julius Zava in Harare Zimbabweans are concerned that the ruling Zanu-PF party is amending the constitution willy-nilly, and is trampling on human rights and eroding judicial independence in the process. Since independence in 1980, Zanu-PF, which has 147 MPs out of a total 150, has amended the constitution 13 times. The 14th amendment has just […]

Frank Swoboda and Don Phillips in Washington USAir Chairman Stephen M Wolf says there is no room for his airline in the proposed international marketing agreement between American Airlines and British Airways (BA). “We simply do not believe we can be a part of it,” Wolf said, signalling a further rupture in the relationship with […]

Scores of South Africans have joined the scramble for diamonds in Angola, reports John Liebenberg South Africans who are plundering Angola’s diamond fields have no respect for the country’s laws or Angolan sovereignty, according to officials in Luanda. Eighteen South Africans were imprisoned for eight days due to an “unfortunate mistake” by the Angolan government […]

Madagascar has witnessed a bizarre tale of money- laundering that has deposed its president, reports Chris McGreal Madagascar has called a snap election, pitting the island’s impeached populist president against parliament in a struggle with roots in a bizarre effort to revive a decrepit economy with loans from drug traffickers and scam artists. Madagascar’s former […]

Gaye Davis ON the eve of a four-day convention aimed at mapping a new direction for the party, Pan Africanist Congress president Clarence Makwetu has declared his willingness to continue to lead the organisation and his confidence of members’ support. But it’s likely the Convention of Africanists, at Vista Mamelodi this weekend, will see intense […]