WEDNESDAY, 5.00PM: SELF-confessed Inkatha Freedom Party hit squad member Brian Gcina Mkhize has told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he was one of a Caprivi-trained hit squad sent to kill African National Congress leaders in Esikhawini township near Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal in 1991. Mkhize, who is serving a 20-year sentence for two murders in 1994, […]
WEDNESDAY, 6.00PM: A DAMNING report cataloguing the Nigerian military junta’s systematic violation of basic human rights was issued by a UN special rapporteur on Wednesday. The report, the first to be devoted entirely to Nigeria, provoked an angry reaction from Nigeria’s foreign minister Tom Ikimi, who said the European Union, and Britain in particular, wants […]
WEDNESDAY, 6.00PM: THE trial of former state president PW Botha adjourned on Wednesday afternoon after calling only one witness, Truth and Reconciliation Commission executive secretary Paul van Zyl. Van Zyl said the reasons for the TRC wanting Botha to appear before it in person were that it would be able to include better evidence, get […]
TUESDAY 1.00PM: DEPUTY president Thabo Mbeki arrived in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday for a three-day visit intended to improve trade and political relations. Mbeki was invited to South Korea by acting prime minister Kim Jong-Pil and will be meeting President Kim Dae-Jung. ”Essentially what we want to do in South Korea is sensitise the […]
THURSDAY, 5.30PM: SOUNDING like a repentant prodigal son, President Robert Mugabe on Thursday launched Zimbabwe’s second economic reform programme, pledging never to repeat the mistakes which saw the country degenerate into economic chaos. LEWIS MACHIPISA reports that the ambitious new Zimbabwe Programme for Economic and Social Transformation envisages an annual growth of six percent over […]
MONDAY, 12.15PM: A CLOSE confidant to Hard Livings gang leader Rashied Staggie, Leon “Chippy” Achilles, was shot in Woodstock, Cape Town on Sunday in a spate of Easter weekend gang-related killings. Achilles died instantly when shots were fired from a passing Nissan Sentra at his stationery car. A second man in the car with Achilles […]
Fred Pearce takes a visit to a Kenyan valley where environmental theory has been turned on its head Jane Ngei, a 30-year-old Kenyan mother and farmer, built her own dam with an ox-plough, spade and wheelbarrow. It’s not a big dam; less than 15m across. “It collects the water running down the road after it […]
A Roman death is always a noble death and the hearts of military traditionalists will have been gladdened by the dignity with which the commander of the South African National Defence Force, General Georg Meiring, this week fell upon his own sword. Modern constitutionalists may also take comfort from the effectiveness with which the executive […]
Does conservatism lurk at the heart of the Klein Karoo festival?Lauren Shantall was there ‘Wat gaan die Afrik aner aan sy beeld doen? [What is the Afrikaner going to do about his image?]” a poster campaign asked provocatively at this year’s Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunsfees (KKNK) in Oudtshoorn. “Hy gaan hom lees [He’ll read it]” […]
Heribert Adam: CROSSFIRE An unfortunate feature characterises the reasoning of Crossfire’s columnists about the role of the black bourgeoisie. Legitimate questions around empowerment and Afro-pessimism are racialised. The colour of Afro-pessimism’s face should be as irrelevant as whether black fat cats emulate white fat cats. What matters is their common exploitation, their undeserved perks at […]