Tomorrow’s fugitive will live in a slum, not under canvas

South Africa was an international laughing stock for its tragically absurd approach to the deadly AIDS epidemic.

In countries that should be setting an example — South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya — the war on corruption has suffered major setbacks before rapacious and ruthless politicians; in Burundi and the Congo Republic, anticorruption campaigners have been killed.
Read more: Grand Larceny Africa (New York Times)

They bear the look of street urchins, their eyes on the prowl for useful scraps of garbage and their bodies covered in clothes no cleaner than a mechanic’s rags.

Why post-apartheid South Africa, once a shining beacon of human rights, is cosying up to nasty regimes around the world.

By Alan Cowell (The New York Times)
FRIDAY, MAY 30, 2008
President Thabo Mbeki must now live with the consequences of what he has called the “quiet diplomacy” that, his critics assert, has merely permitted President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to pursue his economically ruinous regime without restraint.

(The New York Times)
FRIDAY, MAY 9, 2008
After years of enabling Robert Mugabe, it is time for South Africa and all of Zimbabwe ’s neighbors to enable democracy.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/09/opinion/edmugabe.php