”Kapok or snow, it’s all the same for us, baba,” remarks Xolani Khwinana, a scruffy 18-year-old from Zamimpilo squatter camp, west of Johannesburg. Despite being situated under long electric power lines, the settlement has remained powerless for more than 10 years. There are only five communal water taps serving hundreds of families and about 30 communal lavatories.
Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moloketi and Nehawu secretary general Fikile Majola offer a post mortem of the recent mass action. The Mail & Guardian‘s Matuma Letsoalo reports.
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Tony Blair was named on Wednesday as the special envoy of the four major powers mediating Middle East peace shortly after stepping down as prime minister of Britain. Blair’s new role in world politics was announced by the United Nations and United States after he ended a decade in power.
Andy Roddick and Serena Williams led a super-powered United States surge at Wimbledon on Wednesday as American players continued to salvage a reputation so badly damaged at the French Open. American men suffered their worst-ever performance on the Roland Garros clay, making the grass of the All England Club even more of a welcome sight this year.
From Cape Town to Algiers, many Africans welcome Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi’s plan for a United States of Africa, but most say it simply comes too soon for a divided continent. Gadaffi, long regarded as a pariah in the West for his anti-colonial rhetoric, is touring West Africa to promote the long-standing plan for a pan-African government.
Nigeria’s main opposition party said on Wednesday it had signed a deal with ruling People’s Democratic Party to participate in President Umaru Yar’Adua’s new government. The agreement said the All Nigeria People’s Party would work with Yar’Adua towards a ”national consensus in tackling the country’s problems”.
A Kenyan woman hacked off her four-year-old son’s head on Wednesday, apparently furious that the young child had mislaid a 10-shilling (15 United States cents) coin, police and witnesses said. Witnesses said the 35-year-old mother beheaded her child with a machete in the Gatundu region, about 30km north-west of the capital, Nairobi.
About 60% of the country’s population reside in urban areas, according to the State of the World Population report for 2007. The report was released by the United Nations Population Fund on Wednesday. The chief operating officer of the Social Development Department, Zane Dangor, said the increased rural-to-urban migration attested to the poverty in rural areas.
Freezing weather and snowfalls in parts of South Africa have seen the death of a homeless man in Johannesburg, the delay of airline flights and the closure of mountain passes. Snowfalls left more than 300 bus passengers and 20 truck drivers trapped between Harding and Kokstad in KwaZulu-Natal.