Walk around Rangoon and you’d never guess you were living in one of the world’s most brutal regimes. The military presence doesn’t feel overbearing. In plain clothes, though, lurk military intelligence agents. They are everywhere. And then there are the informers on street corners and at meeting places.
The South African, Mozambican and Zimbabwean ministers responsible for the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park held an encouraging meeting at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, on Friday, said Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk on Sunday.
Nelson Mandela and international music stars pressed the world’s richest nations to save lives with increased action against HIV/Aids and poverty at a benefit concert under the midnight sun in Norway’s Arctic. ”Let every child be a healthy child,” Mandela told the cheering crowd of almost 18 000. ”We know what to do and how much it will cost. We now need leadership, vision and political courage.”
African National Congress (ANC) MP James Ngculu ousted Western Cape ANC chairperson Ibrahim Rasool from his post following an election at the party’s provincial congress on Saturday. Ngculu, who chairs the National Assembly’s health committee, won the election by 274 to 259 votes.
The squeaky-clean image of tennis is at risk as the sport braces itself for a court case which threatens to expose match-fixing by top players. Irakli Labadze, a Georgian last year ranked 42nd in the world, will be accused at a court hearing in Austria this week of conspiring with a professional gambler to make money by ”throwing” a match.
South Africa beat Uruguay 134-3 in the one-off rugby Test played at the Absa Stadium in East London on Saturday afternoon. The Springboks led 56-3 at halftime. The result represents a Springbok record for points scored in a Test match, surpassing the 101-0 thrashing dished out to Italy in Durban in 1999.
Head coach Clive Woodward said that the British and Irish Lions tour had reached a make-or-break point after his side were tamed on Saturday in a shock 13-19 defeat by the New Zealand Maori. Woodward, the mastermind behind England’s World Cup success, has his heart set on a Lions Test series win in New Zealand, rating it as the pinnacle of achievement in rugby.
A historic deal to free more than 30 poor countries from the crippling shackles of debt to the West was hailed by Bob Geldof on Saturday as a ”victory for millions”. The -billion settlement, which will immediately benefit countries from Ethiopia and Uganda to Rwanda and Mozambique, was the beginning rather than the end, the campaigning rock star said.
Armed robbers hit the Mail & Guardian in Milpark, Johannesburg, on Saturday night and made off with almost every single computer in the building. Chief operation officer Hoosain Karjieker said an armed gang of ten men held-up security guards at the Media Mill office park, and then forced them to open the door to the Mail & Guardian‘s office on Saturday night.
Participants at the second national Aids conference that ended in Durban on Friday have hailed the event as a huge success. Professor Jerry Coovadia, from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said the conference was proof that South Africa was really a democracy because of the solidarity between academics, non-governmental organisations as well as the young and old.