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/ 14 September 2004
The African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal on Monday said 27 new councillors had joined its ranks since the start of the floor-crossing period on September 1. Most of the councillors were from the New National Party, Democratic Alliance and Inkatha Freedom Party.
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/ 14 September 2004
They originally came as indentured workers but almost 150 years later, South Africa’s million-plus people of Indian origin have carved out a special place in the country’s political and economic landscape. The community of about 1,2-million people is made up largely of descendants of labourers who worked in sugarcane plantations, most of whom were herded onto ships to South Africa by British colonial rulers.
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/ 14 September 2004
Interracial marriages among South Africans are increasing. Coloureds are the most likely to marry outside their group, while Africans, followed by whites, are the least likely. Africans are 7 332 times more likely to marry each other than outside their group. The 1996 and 2001 census figures show that the vast majority of people are still married to someone of the same racial group.
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/ 14 September 2004
As dress codes go, the new rules for the Allen Roc discotheque could not be simpler — leave your clothes behind. All of them. The club has organised what it claims is Europe’s first nudist disco night, telling bouncers not to admit the bashful and only those prepared to boogie in the buff.
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/ 14 September 2004
Up to 10 000 people a month are dying of disease in the Darfur camps, many of them children, despite the international aid effort, the World Health Organisation said on Monday. A study in the west and north of the region by the WHO and the Sudanese government pointed to a monthly toll of 6 000 to 10 000 in the displaced population of 1,2-million.
‘There is no genocide in Sudan’
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/ 14 September 2004
Allegations that American soldiers routinely tortured and maltreated detainees have emerged from a third Iraqi city, renewing fears that abuse similar to that inflicted in Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad has been systematic and widespread. American soldiers in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul beat and stripped detainees, threatened sexual abuse and forced them to listen to loud Western music, according to statements seen by The Guardian.
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/ 14 September 2004
The only thing I miss of the old South Africa is the raucous shebeen life that gave such colour to drab townships. "We all ask for more of the shebeen life of yesterday," lamented Jacky Heyns in <i>Drum</i> in December 1993. "Today all South Africa’s drinkers are relegated to humdrum legitimate liquor lounges …The only way to save South Africa is to reintroduce prohibition!"
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/ 14 September 2004
National airports are the primary gateways to nations today. From the design of a terminal building to the swiftness of baggage retrieval, airports give visitors an all-important first impression of a country’s modernity and capacity to provide services. They are also prestige projects for governments, however, which can lead to problems. Take the situation in Swaziland, for example.
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/ 14 September 2004
A group of teenage boys sit in a circle at a juvenile remand centre calling out words that describe their ideas about what violence is and is not. Interestingly, but not necessarily surprisingly, the words "family" and "marriage" appear in both columns. This exercise forms part of a "hip" training programme that is giving youngsters who have taken a wrong turn the opportunity to get their lives back on track.
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/ 14 September 2004
About 100 families have been evicted from Porta Farm, 25km south of the Zimbabwean capital Harare, and their houses have been razed in defiance of a high court order. The farm is located in President Robert Mugabe’s constituency of Zvimba. The <i>M&G</i> witnessed three truckloads of families being ferried to a location 65km away, where there is no shelter or water. We look at the plight of Zimbabwe’s displaced people.