Staff Reporter

FARAH KHAN, Durban | Tuesday GENETIC research and experimentation have raised the spectre of new forms of discrimination, the World Conference Against Racism heard this week. The future has caught up with the present and now threatens the “brave new world” envisioned by novelist Aldous Huxley, said participants at a panel organised by the UN […]

Ouagadougou | Sunday ORGANISATION of African Unity (OAU) Secretary-General Amara Essy on Saturday said that the United Nations conference on racism under way in Durban, South Africa should declare slavery “a crime against humanity.” “What is clear is that the Durban conference should recognise slavery and the trade in blacks as a crime against humanity,” […]

“I AM a Jew,” UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson declared Wednesday at a dinner in Durban, South Africa, a guest reported. Robinson, a former president of Ireland who is in fact Roman Catholic, was responding to an anti-Jewish cartoon booklet distributed at a forum of non-governmental organisations meeting ahead of a UN conference on […]

Washington | Monday PRESIDENT George W Bush’s top advisor on Sunday disdained the UN conference on racism for having “wasted” time on matters not related and defended the US decision to walk out. “A lot of time was wasted on issues that were extraneous to the question that should have been pre-eminent in the conference,” […]

BRYAN PEARSON, Johannesburg | Monday PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki, who questions the link between HIV and Aids, is again under fire this time for using outdated statistics to bolster his claim that HIV/Aids is not South Africa’s leading cause of death. Mbeki said in a letter to Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, a copy of which was […]

Durban | Thursday THE NGO forum against racism got off to a bumpy start in Durban on Tuesday, with some participants claiming it had been hijacked in a bid to water down the final declaration on slavery. Others complained bitterly about the lack of organisation and overpriced accommodation. The agenda for the day was finalised […]

ISRAEL is shocked by the “kidnapping” of the UN conference on racism in South Africa by Arab and Muslim countries, a representative for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in Jerusalem on Sunday. “We are shocked by the kidnapping of the Durban conference by the Palestinians, by Arab countries and a certain number of Islamic […]

CHERYL GOODENOUGH, Durban | Tuesday FOR two months Nusreta Sivac, a former Bosnian judge, was detained in a concentration camp in northern Bosnia where she was tortured and raped. Fifteen-year-old South African Lorraine Nesane was painted white after being accused of shoplifting by a white manager. At age 10, Afro-Brazilian Crueza Maria de Oliveria worked […]

CHRISPIN INAMBAO, Windhoek | Monday AIR Namibia passengers screamed uncontrollably, some of them vomiting, when an airplane door apparently opened at 9_000 feet last week. The flight was from Ondangwa to Eros Airport on Wednesday night. “They screamed, shouted and did all sorts of things … one of the passengers even tried to close the […]

Luanda | Monday ANGOLA and Zimbabwe want to create joint companies to manufacture weapons, an Angolan military source said on Monday, after defence ministers from the two countries met at the weekend. The proposal surfaced during the meeting between Angolan Defense Minister Kundi Pahyama and his Zimbabwean counterpart Sydney Sekeramai, the source said, speaking on […]

THE US walkout from the UN conference on racism in Durban is a victory for all the victims of the United States, an official Iraqi newspaper said on Wednesday. “The withdrawal of the American delegation in Durban is a victory for all the Africans, Asians, Indians, Australians and others whose ancestors suffered from American colonialism […]

Harare | Monday A FRESH farm invasion took place briefly on Sunday in northern Zimbabwe, as President Robert Mugabe agreed in principle to a Nigerian-brokered deal to end the land dispute. A farming official on the invaded farm in Mashonaland Central province, who asked not to be named, said the invasion by around 200 land […]

FIFTY-one people had been killed and more than 500 wounded by midday on Sunday in Christian-Muslim violence in the Nigerian city of Jos, a senior official said Monday, releasing what he said was a first, partial, official toll. “This is not a final figure. The total I have given you is this, on what we […]

THE ying-yang-style emblem of the World Conference Against Racism has come under fire from the conservative Afrikaner Eenheidsbeweging (Afrikaner unity movement) as a “Satanist” symbol, familiar to the occult world. AEB leader Cassie Aucamp said in a statement on Wednesday that he had learned with shock and disillusionment that the symbol was being used by […]

MAIL & GUARDIAN REPORTERS, Durban | Thursday In private, the South African government must be bitterly disappointed with events in Durban this week. It had hoped that the Third World, and particularly Africa, would speak with one clear voice at the United Nations conference on racism. It wanted to use the conference to heighten world […]

Harare | Saturday ZIMBABWE will only move occupiers off farms not already earmarked for resettlement, meaning fewer than five percent of farms could be affected by a deal reached at Commonwealth talks, Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge said on Friday. “We will be dealing with land which has not been designated and which the government has […]

TWO field rangers who were badly burnt during a devastating fire in the Kruger National Park will undergo skin graft operations as soon as they are stable, said intensive care unit sister at Nelspruit’s Medi-Clinic hospital, Ann Young, on Thursday. The heavily bandaged Moses Lekhuleni, sustained third degree burn wounds to 50% of his body […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, ONGERI JOHN, Nelspruit | Friday THE Tanzanian government this week ordered the deportation of two South Africans accused of secretly testing a discredited anti-Aids drug on human guinea pigs. Tanzania’s Ministry of Home Affairs said on Wednesday that Jacques Zigi Visser and Themba Khumalo appeared to have conducted illegal medical trials with various […]

NINE west-Africans have drowned in a shipwreck off the coast of Cameroon, while 131 passengers were rescued from the waters. Emmanuel Njiaah, the Nigerian ambassador to Cameroon said it was unknown how many passengers were aboard the Nigerian-registered ship and he could not say whether anyone was missing. The ship had set sail from Nigeria […]

US civil rights activist Jesse Jackson called on Friday for a Marshall Plan for Africa on his return from a world conference on racism in Durban. “Africa needs an infrastructure built just as Europe needed an infrastructure built after the war,” said the Reverend Jackson in reference to the post-World War II US-sponsored plan to […]

AN Egyptian farmer had his head blown off by four cousins in an alleged revenge attack after they spent the blood money he had given them on a set of automatic rifles. The cousins allegedly emptied 30 bullets into the head of Kamal Fatiha (35) after surprising him on his way to the fields in […]

DREW Forrest has joined the Mail & Guardian as its political editor. Forrest, formerly political editor of Business Day, joined the M&G at the beginning of the month. He will drive and oversee all aspects of the newspaper’s political coverage. Forrest worked for the M&G in its earlier incarnation as The Weekly Mail as labour […]

MOROCCAN rescue services were on Saturday combing part of the country’s Atlantic coast for survivors after 13 bodies were washed up, and a survivor said they were from a group of 50 would-be migrants whose boat capsized. The survivor, who was found along with the bodies between the coastal towns of Sid Taibi and Bouknadel, […]

Pretoria | Saturday SOUTH African troops were used as guinea pigs in 1989 to test the effects of tear gas and the drug Mandrax, apartheid chemical warfare mastermind Wouter Basson claimed on Friday. Basson (51) told the Pretoria High Court that troops were used as “the rabbits that inhaled the gas” as part of research […]

Harare | Sunday SOME 150 men occupied a farm in central Zimbabwe on Saturday, in the first reported invasion since a breakthrough deal on land reform was signed two days earlier, the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) said. CFU representative Jenni Williams said the farm invasion took place at around mid-day on Logan Lee farm in […]

Almost R1-billion has become available for disbursement from next year Thabo Mohlala The R855-million generated from the proceeds of the demutualisation of insurance giants Old Mutual and Sanlam to fund youth development programmes will be disbursed from early next year. The Umsobomvu Youth Fund’s office opened its doors for business last week, following a lengthy […]

SOCCER James Richardson Last week a schoolboy from Naples got called up for Italy’s under-17 national side despite being just 14. Causing a stir was the lad’s name: Maradona. Yup, he’s the son of the world’s greatest player, and his mum has a court certificate to prove it. Diego Jnr’s story begins in September 1986. […]

It’s seldom that a maiden plate makes for one of the big attractions on the card, but the first race at Turffontein on Saturday could be an exception. While all seasoned racegoers have at one time or another been subjected to rumours of unbeatable first-timers, the pedigree of David Ferraris’s Martinelli should make even the […]

Players who write controversial columns should not be gagged Martin Gillingham Sportsmen and women should be banned from writing newspaper columns. The reason is simple: the bad ones are turgid and boring and the good ones should never have been written. Sadly, the works of the few sports star columnists in this country fall in […]

A bitter battle over words Efforts to broker a joint declaration were hardly congenial, say Mail &Guardian reporters. In private, the South African government must be bitterly disappointed with events in Durban this week. It had hoped that the Third World, and particularly Africa, would speak with one clear voice at the United Nations conference […]

John Naughton The greatest thinkers are always those who can learn from their mistakes. Take Fred Brooks, the engineer who led development of the operating system for the IBM 360 mainframes in the late Sixties. It was the largest software project undertaken up to that point and, like all such projects, it ran over time […]

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson is the latest celeb to get a “Brazilian most women wince at the idea BODY LANGUAGE Laura Barton Cross your legs, ladies, this may sting a little. On a scale of one to childbirth, waxing your nether regions is a minor blip. But the curious point is that more and more women are […]