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/ 10 February 2005
When Napoleon Adok was 16 years old he saw his best friend blown to bits next to him. That was when he decided he had had enough of being a soldier. But he was not allowed to leave. Deserters were put in front of a firing squad, no matter how young they were. Napoleon was one of hundreds of thousands of child soldiers in Africa and the rest of the world. His story is not unique.
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/ 10 February 2005
Former Eastern Cape agriculture MEC Max Mamase should be criminally charged, the Grahamstown-based Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) said on Wednesday. PSAM director Colm Allan also urged Mamase’s wife, provincial social development MEC Neo Moerane-Mamase, to follow his example and quit.
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/ 10 February 2005
An advertisement on the SABC’s website for a weekend screenwriting workshop at something called The Writing Studio triggered a fierce debate in the Dorsbult Bar. ”Write the next great South African film,” read the headline, setting the cat among the pigeons. What, the manne asked, had happened to the first great South African film? How had it slipped past unseen?
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/ 10 February 2005
Ariel Sharon was probably more surprised than most to find himself sitting next to the Palestinian leader on Tuesday declaring the Israeli army ”will cease all its military activity against all Palestinians anywhere”. When Mahmoud Abbas was elected as the new Palestinian President a month ago, even those Israeli officials sympathetic to his pledge to end four years of bloody intifada doubted he could do it. A ceasefire is the first step — but will the chance for peace be grasped?
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/ 9 February 2005
The case between the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa) and four political parties being heard in court on Thursday seeks to make public the records of donations in excess of R50Â 000 to these parties. Idasa wants the parties to disclose their private donors, the amount involved and conditions under which the donation was made.
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/ 9 February 2005
Spoon-bending entertainer Uri Geller was set to appear before the august Oxford Union debating society on Wednesday to prove he really is a psychic, the union has announced. Geller (58) has offered to fix, under the watchful eye of a special camera, any broken watches that members of the union may have.
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/ 9 February 2005
Stealing toiletries and even bathrobes from hotels is one thing, but a British couple have taken pilfering to new heights after liking their hotel shower so much they took it home with them. After they checked out of the room, staff found the entire shower unit had been taken from the en suite bathroom.
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/ 9 February 2005
Pik Botha (72), long-time minister of foreign affairs in the apartheid government, is free of further cancer, preliminary tests have shown. Unitas hospital spokesperson Karin Lindeque confirmed this on Wednesday afternoon after speaking to his surgeon, Heinrich Schwalb.”Since he heard the news, his spirits are soaring,” Botha’s wife said.
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/ 9 February 2005
News organisations covering the Michael Jackson trial are seeking an end to the secrecy surrounding key aspects of the case, including the grand-jury indictment describing the pop singer’s alleged crimes. A lawyer for The Associated Press and other news outlets will ask California’s Second District Court of Appeal to lift the gag order on attorneys in the case.