Staff Reporter

Ebrahim Harvey left field Because the Industrial Revolution, which gave rise to classes and class struggles, began in England and Europe there is no doubt that the historical, ideological and epistemologi-cal foundations of Marxism reside with white European intellectuals, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. Black people in the Third […]

Iden Wetherell Thabo Mbeki’s mission to broker a solution to Zimbabwe’s protracted land crisis has ended impaled on the rock of President Robert Mugabe’s monumental ego, it became clear this week. In Harare two weeks ago for talks with Mugabe ahead of a crucial visit by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan’s envoy Mark Malloch […]

Peter Robinson cricket New Zealand’s 2000 tour of South Africa ended not with a bang nor a whimper, but with the slurp of the Supersopper. The fact that Wanderers groundsman Chris Scott and his staff won the man of the match award says a fair bit about the drawn third Test. Yet even this gesture […]

THE World Bank is lending Ethiopia up to $800m to help rebuild its shattered economy after two years of bitter border war with Eritrea, Bank officials have said. Between July 2000 and July 2001 the World Bank will have lent the eastern African country between $700 and $800m. World Bank representative to Addis Ababa, Nigel […]

Shaun de Waal November this year was the centenary of the death of Oscar Wilde in a cheap Paris hotel; it has been said that the 20th century, on the doorstep of which he died, was the Wilde century. In many ways, Wilde was a (sometimes?unwitting) prophet of the hundred years after his death. In […]

Working-class hero? My arse! He was about as working class as a suburban dentist. Sexy? He was hideous, says Julie Burchill I don’t normally feel the need to return to the scene of a hate-crime once I’ve dissed ’em, they stay dissed but in John Lennon’s case, I will make?an exception. John Lennon! Even his […]

Marianne Merten What is one to think when an eight-year-old girl appears on stage during a beauty pageant dressed in see-through lace and a black G-string? Are her ambitions the same as those of the young women of the Miss World or Miss South Africa competitions who no doubt will always profess to want to […]

SWAZILAND veterinary authorities have destroyed and buried over 100 cattle infected with the highly contagious foot and mouth disease (FMD) as part of a national strategy to contain a possible FMD outbreak. The animals were part of a shipment of live cattle from Kanhym Estate in Mpumalanga, and were meant to be slaughtered for local […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Thursday MPUMALANGA’S cash-strapped provincial administration has grounded all government vehicles, except emergency or other essential services, until March 2001 as part of a package of extraordinary cost curtailment measures. Provincial government official spokeswoman Joy Letlonkane also confirmed that government landline and cellular telephone expenses would be cut dramatically and the use […]

HUNGRY firemen and emergency officers in Swaziland are threatening to go on strike to force the government to feed them at work. A representative said that since September 30 emergency personnel were expected to cook their own food after the caterers were dismissed. Emergency officers had already agreed not to respond to emergencies while they […]

SIZWE SAMAYENDE and JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Middelburg | Thursday AFRICAN National Congress (ANC) councillors in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, have ousted the city’s proposed executive mayor in a clear show of defiance against the party’s national leadership. The revolt is the most extreme protest yet by disgruntled provincial ANC members who are campaigning against the party’s national executive […]

BRIAN LIGOMEKA, Grahamstown | Wednesday AFRICA’S growing debt burden is largely due to poor or corrupt political leadership and reckless economic management, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said this week. IMF programme co-ordinator for southern Africa, El Tigani Ibrahim, said increasing numbers of African countries were struggling to service debt repayments because their political leaders […]

RENEWED heavy fighting between government troops and insurgents has driven at least 94 000 desperate people to flee the Kissidougou region of southern Guinea in two days, the UN refugee agency said. The desperate plight of hundreds of thousands of local people and refugees caught up in the conflict in Guinea’s border area was a […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Wednesday ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe this week begins the most desperate struggle of his political career to survive a wave of antagonism against him from within his own party ranks. Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party starts a four-day extraordinary congress on Thursday, where the question on everyone’s mind – whether Mugabe will […]

CLAIRE KEETON, Johannesburg | Wednesday SOUTH Africa’s Human Rights Commission (HRC) has exposed a list of abuses against illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers in a new report, including unlawfully long detentions, abuse and corruption by those in charge of them. Violence towards detainees is “frequently present” at the Lindela repatriation centre near Johannesburg – which hosts […]

THE Harvard School of Public Health is to donate $25m to programmes to fight Aids in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, US officials said. The money will be released in five grants over 18 months. More than 5.4% of the sexually active population in Nigeria carries the HIV virus. – AFP

BRIAN LIGOMEKA, Blantyre | Wednesday MALAWI President Bakili Muluzi deliberately undermined investigations into human rights abuses in the small central African country to hide his possible complicity in politically motivated murder, torture and assault, a scathing new international study alleges. Respected international human rights watchdog Article 19 claims in its “Malawi: Who Wants To Forget” […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday CROCODILE attacks have claimed a third victim within a week in South Africa’s muddy, flood-swollen rivers in spite of repeated warnings by game rangers. In the newest attack, a crocodile killed Sizakele Manyoni (35), who was crossing the Enseleni River in eastern KwaZulu-Natal province at a well-known crossing place on […]

THE World Bank has approved a $50m interest-free credit to help Kenya improve its health care sector and step up the campaign against Aids. The bank described HIV/Aids as a “development crisis,” noting that the prevalence rate for HIV among people in Kenya 15 to 49 years old has been increasing an average of 11% […]

THE Russian-built Antonov planes sold to private Angolan companies are wrecks that are banned from flying in former Soviet states, says Angola’s ambassador to Russia. Antonov aircraft have been in 11 major accidents since 1995 in Angola. The most recent, on November 15, killed 57 people in Luanda. Investigators said engine failure and negligence by […]

THE Agency for the Safety of Air Navigation in Africa (ASECNA) is to invest around $231m over the next five years to improve flight safety. The agency overlooks the safety of flights from 24 airports, over a space covering 16 million square kilometres. Christian Pallot of the board said the agency had improved the quality […]

THE son of Nigeria’s late military ruler Sani Abacha has failed in an attempt to have his trial for a 1996 murder thrown out, court officials said. The Ikeja High Court dismissed an appeal by lawyers acting for Mohammed Abacha that there was no case to answer, a spokesman for the court said. Abacha was […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday A FORMER anti-apartheid freedom fighter who killed three bus commuters in Cape Town’s transport wars for R350 has been sentenced to three life terms in prison, plus another 75 years. Bandile Botya, 31, had pleaded guilty in the Cape High Court to three charges of murder and 36 of […]

An Egyptian-Japanese bid to extract DNA samples from the mummy of Egypt’s legendary pharaoh Tutankhamun has been postponed for bureaucratic reasons, a project coordinator said. Researchers trying to determine Tutankhamun’s lineage were to have begun probing his cadaver at his tomb in the southern city of Luxor on Tuesday. Researchers hope to determine whether Tutankhamun […]

ANGRY residents of Uganda’s northwestern Masindi district chased away two men sent in to bury victims of the deadly Ebola virus for fear they would spread the disease, a health official said. World Health Organisation (WHO) expert Ray Arthur said his team last week brought two experienced burial workers from the northern town of Gulu […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday A MOTHER with a child on her back and two toddlers in her arms stood on the tracks in front of an oncoming train – and when the five-year-old child tried to scurry away, she pulled him back before the family was pulverised under the train’s wheels, Die Burger […]

THREE men charged with detonating teargas in a Durban nightclub, causing a stampede in which 13 children died, have been found guilty of culpable homicide. Judge Jan Hugo found each of the men – connected to a rival nightclub – guilty on 13 counts of culpable homicide, 56 counts of common assault and one count […]

ARIVIA.KOM, a new state-owned information technology (IT) company, would be launched early next year, Business Report said. The company is to be valued at R1bn in the first year and R2bn in the second year. Arivia.kom will be formed from the consolidated IT divisions of Ariel Technologies from arms manufacturer Denel, Datavia under transport group […]

THE road death toll since the start of the summer holiday season has reached at least 170 after two horrific accidents in which 33 people died. Sixteen people died in a collision between two buses between Pretoria and Marble Hall, while 17 were killed in a collision between a truck and a minibus taxi outside […]

AMNESTY International has urged authorities in Guinea to release leading opposition figure Alpha Conde, president of the Guinean People’s Rally, and a number of his supporters. The human rights organisation claimed most of a group of 47 supporters of Conde had been tortured to extract confessions and did not have a fair hearing. Conde, a […]

STUDENTS in Angola will soon have to pay for their studies after a quarter of a century of free education, education ministry officials said. Ways of exempting the poorest pupils from the charges are being discussed. The new charges could mean even fewer people will get an education in this poverty-stricken country torn by civil […]

FORMER Nigerian military ruler Ibrahim Babangida ordered the October 1986 killing of journalist Dele Giwa, a lawyer for his family told a rights panel. Giwa, the editor-in-chief of Newswatch magazine, died when a parcel bomb exploded as he opened it. Babangida seized power in a coup in 1985 and ran the country until 1993. The […]