Staff Reporter

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 […]

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 […]

Durban | Wednesday AS the World Conference Against Racism enters its fifth day on Wednesday, the working group that will negotiate the compromise language over the controversial Middle East issue is expected to begin drafting a new text. The working group will be tasked with removing all racist language from the draft declaration of the […]

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,” […]

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,” […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Power struggles at the huge university are jeopardising distance education in South Africa David Macfarlane The future of distance education in South Africa hangs in the balance following extraordinary turmoil at Unisa this week. The shock resignation of Unisa vice-chancellor Professor Antony Melck exposes massive power struggles at the country’s largest university. Events leading to […]

The turbulent history of Durban’s Indian community is on show in two theatre productions and a photographic exhibition in the city Alexander Sudheim The World Conference against Racism provided a moment for the international community to take a long, hard look at difficult issues. The climate also provided an opportunity for local communities to reflect […]

Tara Turkington A bus operator in Kimberley has retrenched half his staff and is facing bankruptcy after an empowerment deal set up by the provincial government went sour. Sabbatha Mathiba once owned the thriving Rainbow Bus Company, ferrying commuters to and from work at the De Beers diamond mines. But now the company is in […]

obituary: christiaan barnard Surgeon Christiaan Barnard, who has died aged 78, led the surgical team that performed the first human-to-human heart transplant on December 2 to 3 1967. The operation captured public imagination around the globe, and, literally overnight, Barnard became one of the best-known people in the world. Although his achievement, courage and vision […]

Khadija Magardie Several pressure groups attending the World Conference against Racism in Durban have complained bitterly that their plight has been drowned out by the hype over the Israeli/ Palestinian impasse and the debate over reparations for slavery and colonialism. With the full title of the conference including “Racism, Xenophobia and other forms of Related […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The Pan Africanist Congress in the Eastern Cape has slammed the provincial administration for failing to spend funds earmarked for service delivery programmes in the rural areas. Speaking after the party’s Eastern Cape regional congress at the weekend, PAC leaders said the party was concerned about the provincial government’s failure to […]

Hellenic, usually very consistent, have started the season on the wrong foot Ntuthuko Maphumulo What have Hellenic done to anger the gods? That’s the question coach Steve Haupt is asking himself after a number of defeats at the beginning of the season. The Cape Town-based side, known as the “Greek gods”, are languishing near the […]