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/ 6 December 2007
Holding the reigns of the ox-wagon that is pulling his father’s coffin, Nkosinathi Biko sits alone and solemnly among the masses of people. Surrounded by a throng of supporters, angry and tearful, he cuts a figure of solitude. A hero of the struggle is dead — but now lives on through the work of the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg.
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/ 6 December 2007
Robert Mugabe, a largely unwelcome guest of the European Union at a summit this weekend, is a hero in the eyes of many Africans for daring to stand up to the West and seize land from white farmers. Many in Europe have been left scratching their heads over how Zimbabwe’s president since independence still commands respect.
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/ 4 December 2007
A delegation of the world’s elder statesmen on Tuesday called for an immediate ceasefire in Sudan’s Darfur and for the international community to urgently honour its pledge to send in a peacekeeping force. ”The future of Darfur, and indeed the whole of Sudan, sits on a knife-edge,” said a report following a fact-finding mission.
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/ 2 December 2007
South African cleric Desmond Tutu was on Sunday awarded one of Germany’s most prestigious honours, the Marion Doenhoff Prize for International Reconciliation and Understanding. The retired Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town has become ”a symbol for peace and justice in the world”, German Economic Assistance Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said.
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/ 2 December 2007
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=ancconference_home"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/321750/Icon_ANCconference.gif" align=left border=0></a>President Thabo Mbeki said on Sunday that he would not rule out calling early general elections if he failed to win the leadership of the governing African National Congress (ANC) party. "I have not thought about that one [early poll]. We haven’t got there yet. I don’t know. It’s possible, it’s possible, yes indeed," he said in an interview.
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/ 2 December 2007
Tens of thousands of people filed into Ellis Park Stadium on Saturday for a 10-hour music extravaganza beamed to millions around the globe for World Aids Day. The concert at the 50Â 000-seater stadium got under way in the afternoon and lasted late into the night, with 30 local and international artists performing, ranging from Ludacris to Peter Gabriel.
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/ 30 November 2007
Statistics that indicated HIV/Aids numbers were lower than previously thought was cold comfort, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said on Friday. Speaking in Pretoria a day before World Aids Day, Tutu said that while the country might say things had improved, it was unacceptable that 600 people died of Aids everyday in South Africa.
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/ 27 November 2007
People around the world are preparing for floods, droughts and other natural disasters in ways largely dictated by wealth and poverty as evidence of climate change mounts, a United Nations report said on Tuesday. Even if countries took steps to cut greenhouse gases, temperatures would continue to rise until 2050 due to accumulated carbon emissions.
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/ 18 November 2007
Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu has slammed the church for being ”obsessed” with homosexuality, in a BBC radio programme to be broadcast
Tuesday. The South African 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner, 76, said he felt ashamed of his church for its attitude towards gays.
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/ 13 November 2007
The death penalty is a violation of fundamental human rights, and it should be abolished around the world, Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote in the Guardian on Tuesday, ahead of a vote on a draft resolution at the United Nations General Assembly calling for a moratorium on executions.
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/ 6 November 2007
The only fixed-line telephone for the first community television station in South Africa to get a year-long broadcasting licence is hidden away in an outdoor broadcasting van for fear of freeloading by staff and guests. When you call the station let it ring for a long time, publicist Deon Botha advises.
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/ 2 November 2007
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is ignoring approaches from former South African president Nelson Mandela to step down, reports said on Friday. The Zimbabwe Independent, quoting unnamed sources, also said that former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan had tried to meet with Mugabe to discuss his retirement.
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/ 31 October 2007
The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund announced on Wednesday it would not participate in this year’s Nelson Mandela Invitational Golf Tournament. ”As a result of our withdrawal the tournament can no longer be called the Nelson Mandela Invitational and should not be marketed as such in any form whatsoever,” the fund said in a statement.
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/ 22 October 2007
An international campaign to stop the beating of children has urged South African MPs not to bow to pressure against a Bill that bans spanking. Hitting children was ”plainly unconstitutional”, the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children said on Monday.
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/ 19 October 2007
Children’s rights activists on Friday urged MPs to push through a Bill that will ban corporal punishment of children, saying it was vital that children be protected from violence. The social development portfolio committee on Thursday postponed deliberations on the measure after members of the African National Congress’s parliamentary caucus reportedly objected.
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/ 12 October 2007
Renowned golfer Gary Player reiterated on Friday his company was only involved in the design of a golf course in Burma and had no links with the controversial Burma regime. Player was recently removed from the guest list for the Nelson Mandela Invitational golf tournament, which is set to take place in the Western Cape in November.
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/ 12 October 2007
Three doors down from the old home of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, make-up artists apply the finishing touches to the presenters of Soweto TV as they prepare to host a daily debate. ”Welcome to Dlala Ngeringas [Fun Debate],” says Zuko Xabanisa as the cameras start rolling in the classroom-turned-studio.
Renowned golfer Gary Player said on Tuesday he was disappointed that his integrity and support for human rights had been brought into question by his removal from the guest list for the Nelson Mandela Invitational golf tournament. Player’s company was involved in the construction of the Pun Hlaing Golf Club in Rangoon.
Gary Player has been asked to step down as the host and honorary guest of the Nelson Mandela Invitational golf tournament, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund said on Monday. Player’s company has business ties with Burma, where a golf course he designed is allegedly used by members of the brutal ruling junta.
A key Darfur rebel leader warned on Saturday his movement will not attend peace talks this month in Libya unless the United Nations and the African Union can convince a rival group to unite its splinter factions.Khalil Ibrahim, leader of the Justice and Equality Movement, had said he would attend talks set to begin October 27 in Tripoli, Libya.
Legendary golfer Gary Player has come under fire in South Africa over his company’s business ties with Burma, where a golf course he designed is allegedly used by members of the brutal ruling junta. South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for a boycott of all foreign companies doing business in the Asian country.
Ethiopia on Thursday pledged 5 000 troops to a United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region. The 26 000-strong joint mission is to replace a hard-pressed AU force that lacks experience, equipment and cash and has been unable to stop the conflict.
International elder statesmen, including two Nobel Peace Prize winners, said on Thursday that Darfur was rife with violence and deeply divided after returning from the Sudanese region. They warned rape was widespread and being ignored by the Sudanese authorities and also urged Khartoum to hand over war-crimes suspects for trial at the International Criminal Court.
Sudan’s president has promised to pay -million in compensation to the country’s war-torn Darfur region, tripling a previous pledge, former United States president Jimmy Carter said on Wednesday. Carter also publicly clashed with a Sudanese security chief who had objected to the visit to a Darfur tribal chief.
Former President Jimmy Carter had a heated exchange with Sudanese security who prevented him from visiting a Darfur tribal leader in Kebkabiya, North Darfur on Wednesday. The exchange occurred as Carter toured Darfur with a group of elder statesmen including South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
African Union (AU) peacekeepers are outgunned and outnumbered by rebels and militias in Darfur, the AU force commander Martin Luther Agwai said on Tuesday. He said this was one reason an AU base in Haskanita, south-east Darfur, was overwhelmed so quickly during a recent attack on the peacekeepers.
A group of elder statesmen, including former US president Jimmy Carter and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, urged all sides in Darfur’s bloodshed to reach a peace deal as they began a tour on Tuesday of the war-torn region. The visit comes days after rebels overran an African Union peacekeeping base in northern Darfur.
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said on Monday he would pull his country’s troops out of Darfur if it was determined that African peacekeepers who were killed at the weekend were not equipped to defend themselves. Twenty African Union soldiers were killed or injured and 40 missing after an assault on the Haskanita base in Darfur on Saturday night.
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/ 30 September 2007
Ten African Union (AU) soldiers were killed and 50 were missing after armed men launched an assault on an AU base in Darfur, the worst attack on AU troops since they deployed in Sudan’s violent west in 2004. The AU called it a ”deliberate and sustained” assault by about 30 vehicles, which overran and looted the peacekeepers’ camp on Saturday night.
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/ 27 September 2007
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe accused United States President George Bush of ”rank hypocrisy” on Wednesday for lecturing him on human rights, and likened the US Guantánamo Bay prison to a concentration camp. ”His hands drip with innocent blood of many nationalities,” Mugabe said in a typically fiery speech to the United Nations General Assembly.
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/ 27 September 2007
The construction cranes towering and the cacophony of concrete churning and trucks rumbling are the sights and sounds of a business boom in South Africa’s most famous township. Black South Africans are reaping the benefits of a growing economy, and at the heart of it all is Soweto, the huge township south-west of Johannesburg.
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/ 26 September 2007
South Africa’s Nobel Peace Prize-winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu expressed concern about the situation in Burma on Wednesday, describing the country’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi as his only pin-up. ”I think we ought to celebrate the incredible courage of our sisters and brothers in Burma,” he said.