Ekurhuleni had a special significance for OR Tambo — it is here that he returned to after spending 30 years in exile.
OR was remarkable in that, while a student himself, he used to teach others the intricacies of mathematics and the sciences.
Problems with the ANC’s candidate lists have seemingly reached the point where one member is claiming to be receiving advice from beyond the grave.
Officials are considering a plan to demolish Chancellor House — Nelson Mandela’s former law office — and turn the area into an "open urban space".
The political rupture in South Africa is being presented in the outside world as the personal tragedy and humiliation of one man, Thabo Mbeki.
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/ 22 September 2008
Ranjeni Munusamy asks how the media could have missed the signs of a political conspiracy against Jacob Zuma.
The South African state is imploding. Although there is not a moment to spare, we can still avoid the coming crash if we act quickly enough. But, first, there has to be an official acknowledgement that there is a crisis. Astonishingly, denial of the crisis remains the mainstay of President Thabo Mbeki and his leading officials, writes William M Gumede.
Trustees of the insolvent estate of slain mining magnate Brett Kebble want more than R25-million back from beneficiaries of Kebble’s largesse, Business Day reported on Wednesday. Alleged beneficiaries ranged from senior African National Congress members to a prominent business journalist.
South Africa is honouring her for helping it overcome the legacy of apartheid, but Linda Biehl says she is simply doing what any parent would after the death of a child: trying to find meaning in loss. She was speaking on the eve of a ceremony at which President Thabo Mbeki is to grant her one of the country’s highest honours.
Awards will be bestowed on a musician, a judge and a former chief of state of protocol, Billy Modise, during next week’s 11th national orders ceremony. Modise, United States musician and singer Harry Belafonte and Chief Justice Pius Langa are just some of those who will be recognised at the ceremony.
Slain revolutionary leader Chris Hani would not have believed that 14 years into democracy, South Africa is still an unequal society, the Congress of South African Trade Unions said on Thursday at a memorial service marking 15 years since the assassination of Hani, the then-head of the South African Communist Party.
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/ 26 January 2008
Residents of the impoverished Skielik community on Saturday buried three loved ones who were gunned down last week, allegedly by 18-year-old Johan Nel. Enoch Tshepo Motshelanoka (10), three-month-old Keditlhotse Elizabeth Moiphitlhi and her 31-year-old mother, Anna, were buried at the Swartruggens cemetery.
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/ 16 December 2007
There are moments in history when the future appears as a series of stark choices between life and death, good and evil, progress and regression. Such is the national mood as the ANC gathers at Polokwane. We might call it the end of post-apartheid innocence — something similar to what other African countries experienced after a decade or more of independence.
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/ 15 December 2007
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Sara Kadi, a volunteer Aids worker who lives in a shack without electricity in an impoverished part of Soweto, wants a better life. That is why she wants Jacob Zuma to win the race for the leadership of the ruling African National Congress and become the next president of South Africa.
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/ 14 December 2007
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In an eleventh-hour appeal before the African National Congress’s (ANC) national conference starts on Sunday, President Thabo Mbeki on Friday urged delegates to remain faithful to the party’s revolutionary goals. He said it is important that delegates fully understand the responsibility they carry on their shoulders.
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/ 5 December 2007
What does President Thabo Mbeki like to do in his spare time? Ballroom dancing? Playing the piano? No, the man likes to work during leisure hours, says his spokesperson. As the ruling party’s national conference in Polokwane approaches members of the South African Cabinet certainly need ways to unwind.
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/ 9 November 2007
Designing a code of conduct for a liberation struggle in exile was the most significant work of his career, Constitutional Court Justice Albie Sachs said on Thursday. ”To my mind that was the beginning of the constitutionality at the heart, at the core of the freedom struggle,” Sachs said in delivering the second annual Abdullah Omar Memorial Lecture.
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/ 31 October 2007
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South African President Thabo Mbeki has repeated his willingness to stand for re-election as leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) if the party asks him, state radio reported on Wednesday. ANC branches have started the process of nominating candidates for party president ahead of a party conference in December.
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/ 17 October 2007
The wife of President Thabo Mbeki on Wednesday unveiled a new statue of anti-apartheid leader Oliver Tambo in the north London suburb where he was exiled for 30 years. Zanele Mbeki joined Britain’s Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, and other dignitaries to take the wraps off the bust in a park in Muswell Hill, near where Tambo lived from 1960 to 1990.
"He’s behaving like Cosatu belongs to him," muttered one observer. It was a reference to Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi — the high-spirited, joke-cracking star of the show at the federation’s recent central committee (CC) meeting. Everything was going Vavi’s way.
Those who fought against apartheid are not everyone’s heroes, the Afrikanerbond said on Tuesday. ”These heroes from the ‘struggle’ past are not the only heroes and definitely not everyone’s heroes,” said Afrikanerbond managing director Jan Bosman.
Former South African president Nelson Mandela on Wednesday announced a giant benefit concert in London next June to promote his 46664 campaign against HIV/Aids. The gig will take place in Hyde Park on June 27 to mark his 90th birthday the following month, Mandela said at the unveiling of a statue of him in London’s Parliament Square.
African National Congress and South African government representatives held a round of preliminary talks in London last weekend.
A former personal bodyguard and driver of African National Congress leader, Oliver Tambo, was shot dead by an unknown gunman in Soweto this week.