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/ 5 June 2008

The curse of African nationalism

The government’s knee-jerk reaction to the pogroms that swept across the country speaks volumes to the politics of African nationalism. We were told they were ”criminal” acts in the service of a ”third force” agenda. This last term has a particular saliency in the South African context, writes Ivor Chipkin.

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/ 30 May 2008

Decade of a dream

It is 10 years since the South Africa Football Association (Safa) first announced its intention to host the sport’s biggest showpiece, the World Cup. Today, the idea, first mooted by former Safa president Solomon ”Stix” Morewa, is less than 740 days from being realised. The Mail & Guardian tracks the history of South Africa’s biggest sporting fantasy.

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/ 29 May 2008

Tutu wraps up investigation of Gaza deaths

United Nations envoy Archbishop Desmond Tutu, concluding a fact-finding mission to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Thursday, condemned as a ”massacre” the killing of 18 members of a Palestinian family by Israeli shelling in 2006. Tutu planned to present a report about the incident to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva at a session in September.

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/ 28 May 2008

Tutu in Gaza to start probe into deaths

Desmond Tutu, the South African archbishop, met the former Palestinian prime minister and Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Gaza at the start of a much-delayed United Nations investigation into the shelling by the Israeli military of a Palestinian house which killed 18 members of a single family in Beit Hanoun.

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/ 20 May 2008

SA drops down Global Peace Index

South Africa has emerged at a ranking of 116 in the Global Peace Index 2008, the index said on Tuesday. ”South Africa has moved down six places since 2007,” it said in a statement. The index is a ranking of 140 countries — from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe — listed according to their peacefulness.

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/ 16 May 2008

West urged to cancel $400bn of poor countries’ debt

A further -billion of debt relief for the world’s poorest countries is needed despite a decade of progress, the Jubilee Debt Campaign warns on Friday. The group’s latest report calls on the G8, World Bank and International Monetary Fund to cancel -billionn of debt, which it says is ”unpayable” and an obstacle to the battle against global poverty.

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/ 28 April 2008

North Korea fetes torch with rally and songs

North Koreans waved flags, plastic flowers and danced in the streets of Pyongyang to welcome the Olympic torch on Monday after the destitute state had promised its main benefactor China an ”astonishing” show. The global torch relay ahead of the Beijing Games in August has prompted protests against China’s rights record in Tibet.

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/ 27 April 2008

Tutu urges leaders to miss Olympic Games opening

Archbishop Desmond Tutu urged world leaders on Sunday to stay away from the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in August. South Africa’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate lit a ”Tibetan” Olympic torch, which was kindled in Delhi on January 30 and will travel to cities on five continents before arriving in May back in Dharamsala, India.