An anti-apartheid fighter convicted in a 1986 bombing that killed three women was officially appointed police chief of a Johannesburg district on Tuesday, making him responsible for the safety of 2 million people.
Robert McBride, now 40, was one of the most famous saboteurs in the underground of the African National Congress (ANC). He was sentenced to death for bombing a crowded beachfront in Durban, served six years in prison, then was granted amnesty in 1992 as a concession by a weakened apartheid government.
He told the local press this week that he saw a certain justice in his appointment to lead the police force that he tried so desperately to undermine during the apartheid era. He promised to support the force with the same passion with which he once opposed it.
"There is no aspect of my past that I am ashamed of," the SAPA news agency quoted him as saying.
McBride won the support of local political officials for the job, as well as an implicit endorsement from South African President Thabo Mbeki. In a monthly newsletter published by the ANC, Mbeki's political party, the president said McBride's rise shows how far the nation has come in reconciling itself to its past.
"We will not agree that Mr. McBride should be condemned for having been a liberation fighter," Mbeki wrote.
But the opposition Democratic Alliance said McBride's appointment indicates the ANC cares more about pleasing its constituency than competent governance.
Douglas Gibson, chief whip of the Democratic Alliance, said it was "lunacy" to pick McBride to supervise police work in the area of Ekurhuleni because he knows nothing about police work.
McBride responded that his past skirmishes with the police have at least taught him "what not to do."
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the