Struggling even before Covid, communities are taking it upon themselves to try to fill the gaps left by the government
One evening a week, Natasha Msweswe and Zanele Madasi leave their children at home and set out to patrol the streets of Thembokwezi. They return at midnight. This is potentially very dangerous but they feel they have little choice.
“It can be scary but we want to protect our community,” said Madasi, 31. “We want to make a difference.”
Continue reading...South African firefighters are struggling to extinguish another fire at the complex housing the country’s parliament in Cape Town, a day after a blaze swept through the buildings. Police have charged a 49-year-old man with arson and other offences including theft. The speaker of the national assembly said arson, if confirmed, would represent an attack on South Africa’s democracy
Continue reading...Police say suspect arrested inside building over blaze that spread from oldest wing of national assembly
A man is due to appear in court on Tuesday after a massive fire tore through South Africa’s national assembly building.
An investigation has been opened into the blaze that started at about 3am on Sunday in the parliament complex’s oldest wing, which was completed in 1884 and has wood-panelled rooms.
Continue reading...Firefighters still battling to contain blaze that broke out in the historic building
A major fire in the South African parliament in Cape Town is continuing to burn after more than six hours, with authorities fearing significant damage.
Images broadcast on television showed flames leaping from the roof of one large building, while several others in the parliament precinct including the National Assembly were enveloped in a thick cloud of black smoke.
Continue reading...A major fire broke out in South Africa's parliament building in Cape Town early on Sunday that could be seen from miles around.
The fire started in third-floor offices and spread to the National Assembly chamber, the City of Cape Town fire and rescue service spokesperson Jermaine Carelse told local media. He added that no people had been injured in the fire
Continue reading...The anti-apartheid hero requested an eco-friendly cremation, which uses water instead of flames to process the remains
The body of Archbishop Desmond Tutu will undergo aquamation, an increasingly popular and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional cremation methods, using water instead of fire.
With aquamation, or “alkaline hydrolysis”, the body of the deceased is immersed for three to four hours in a mixture of water and a strong alkali, such as potassium hydroxide, in a pressurised metal cylinder and heated to around 150C.
Continue reading...Relatives and clergy members at the funeral for Desmond Tutu paid tribute to the Nobel peace prize-winning equality activist, who was revered in Africa for his role in ending apartheid. Tutu's small plain pine coffin, the cheapest available at his request to avoid any ostentatious displays, was the centre of the service, which also is featuring African choirs, prayers and incense
Continue reading...Ceremony takes place in cathedral the South African cleric and Nobel laureate turned into centre of struggle against racial injustice
Just after noon, as the voices of the choir filled the cathedral, the mourners stood, bowed their heads in the direction of the plain wooden casket and then filed out on to Cape Town’s streets.
The requiem mass for Desmond Tutu, who died aged 90 six days ago, had lasted much of the morning, long enough for a celebration of a life that has inspired tens of millions around the world, a final farewell from his compatriots, and for the unexpected rainclouds that had shrouded his home city overnight to clear.
Continue reading...Mourners queue in Cape Town to see casket of former archbishop, who requested a funeral without lavish expense
Hundreds of mourners queued outside Saint George’s cathedral in Cape Town, waiting to pay their respects before the plain wooden casket bearing the remains of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died six days ago aged 90.
Clerics, family members, close friends and dignitaries will attend a requiem mass for Tutu, the icon of the fight for freedom in South Africa, on Saturday morning. Their numbers will be restricted due to Covid regulations. President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to read a eulogy.
Continue reading...Case figures include delayed data from Northern Ireland; Spain cuts quarantine despite record rise in cases
India has recorded another 9,195 confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, according to recently released data from its health ministry.
A further 302 deaths were also recorded, bring the total death toll to 480,592.
Continue reading...I’ve spent 12 months of the pandemic obsessively listening to the song Uwrongo, with its line: “This is not working, go home.” I’m very grateful to its singer
I was born on a farm in northern South Africa. My parents moved nearer to Johannesburg when I was still a baby. They have a photograph of me at maybe six months old, asleep inside my dad’s guitar case. Just picturing it in my mind makes me feel safe. I can hear my dad playing.
When I feel overwhelmed, I need something I can listen to on loop. Not just for hours, but for days, sometimes weeks. I think of these tracks as an aural hood. They hold my head together.
Continue reading...Readers commemorate the late South African archbishop, and the causes of peace, equality and environmentalism that he championed
Your informative obituary of Archbishop Desmond Tutu (26 December) missed an important dimension – his warnings on the need to save the planet. In March 2004, he delivered a lecture entitled God’s Word and World Politics at the United Nations as part of Kofi Annan’s public lecture series on cutting-edge topics in the humanities, natural sciences, social sciences and the arts.
The archbishop said: “Ecological concerns are a deeply religious, spiritual matter. To pollute the environment, to be responsible for a disastrous warming, is not just wrong and should be a criminal offence; it is certainly morally wrong. It is a sin.”
Prof Abiodun Williams
Tufts University
Body of revered anti-apartheid figure to be displayed for extra day ‘to accommodate more mourners’
The body of archbishop Desmond Tutu, the revered South African anti-apartheid fighter who died at the weekend aged 90, will lie in state for two days before his funeral on New Year’s Day, his foundations have said.
The lying in state was initially scheduled to last just one day – Friday – but has been extended to include Thursday “to accommodate more mourners”, said the Archbishop Tutu IP Trust and the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.
Continue reading...The beloved anti-apartheid hero will lie in state for two days in Cape Town before a funeral on 1 January
Thousands of South Africans will pause to remember the anti-apartheid icon Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died on Sunday aged 90, every day this week as bells are rung at churches across the country for 10 minutes at noon.
Tributes to Tutu, described as the “moral compass” of his country, have poured in from around the world since his death in a Cape Town care home, as a series of events commemorating his life and achievements begin.
Continue reading...Cyril Ramaphosa, president of South Africa, paid tribute to the late archbishop Desmond Tutu in a televised address to the nation on Sunday. Calling him a leader with 'compassion, dignity, humility and grace', Ramaphosa highlighted Tutu's activist approach to peace and alleviating poverty.
Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the late 1990s and in recent years was hospitalised on several occasions because of infections associated with his treatment. He died peacefully in the early hours of Sunday morning, according to his relatives.
Politicians, religious figures and activists pay tribute to archbishop, who died on Boxing Day aged 90
Politicians, religious figures and activists from around the world have paid tribute to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the cleric, social activist and giant of South Africa’s struggle against white minority rule who died on Sunday aged 90.
The president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, said: “The passing of archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa.
Continue reading...Leaders around the world have paid tribute to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the cleric, social activist and giant of South Africa’s struggle against apartheid, who died on Sunday aged 90.
Residents of Cape Town and the Soweto township in Johannesburg also described their feelings about 'the arch' who has been described as the moral conscience of his nation
Continue reading...Tutu did not spare those in power in the ‘rainbow nation’ – a phrase of his with unfulfilled aspirations
From the moment he resigned from his post as a schoolteacher rather than comply with the orders of the racist, repressive apartheid regime in South Africa in 1958, Desmond Tutu never deviated from his principles, fighting for tolerance, equality and justice at home and abroad. This brought him love, influence and a moral prestige equalled by few others on the African continent or beyond.
But Tutu, the cleric and activist who died on Sunday in Cape Town aged 90, was not just outspoken in support of the causes he felt to be right – such as LGBT rights – but a fierce and implacable opponent of what he felt to be wrong. Criticism was often tempered with humour. On occasion, it was delivered straight. This earned him enemies, and still does.
Continue reading...Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu, the cleric and social activist who was a giant of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, has died aged 90. Tutu, described by foreign observers and his countrymen as the moral conscience of his nation, died in Cape Town on Boxing Day.
Excitable, emotional and charismatic, Tutu won the Nobel peace prize in 1984 and chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the controversial and emotional hearings into apartheid-era human rights abuses. This is his life, in his own words
Described as South Africa’s moral compass, Desmond Tutu, the anti-apartheid Nobel peace prize-winning activist for racial justice and LGBT rights, and retired Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, has died aged 90. An uncompromising foe of apartheid, Tutu worked tirelessly but non-violently for its downfall
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