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If we cannot do this, if Classics remains the preserve of a White enclave, then it is hard to see a future for the subject in South Africa.[23] Twenty-five years later, people may well ask if Classics in South Africa, historically the country in Africa with the most extensive network of university Classics departments, and the most international, but almost wholly White, Classics ecosystem, still remains that "White enclave". But for what we have been able to produce, we hope that this attempt will lead to a more sustained and serious conversation on decolonizing Classics in Africa, including what we can learn from the history of Classics in Africa and what strategies, challenges, and prospects there are for us to navigate. B David van Schoor b 's paper, 'For an African elenchus: colonial and post-colonial misprisions and Classics in Africa', attempts a refutation (hence, an elenchus) of two prevalent errors of interpretation - Eurocentrism and Afrocentrism - to point the way forward for future Humanities and Classics in Africa. [Extracted from the article]

South Africa's foreign policy, conducted in an ad hoc and haphazard fashion under President Nelson Mandela, has been consolidated under the presidency of Thabo Mbeki. This article first outlines five consistent policy themes: Africa and Africanist; democracy and respect for human rights; a holistic understanding of security; a pacific approach to conflict resolution; and multilateralism. The article then identifies and attempts to explain a number of significant inconsistencies in relation to these themes, including Mbeki's‘quiet diplomacy’ on Zimbabwe; his denialist position on HIV/AIDS; South Africa's controversial arms procurement programme; and its domestic xenophobia. Some of these inconsistencies have undermined the country's international credibility and at times overhshadowed its considerable achievements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent invasion of Africa by fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda, a lepidopteran pest of maize and other crops, has heightened concerns about food security for millions of smallholder farmers. Maize genetically engineered to produce insecticidal proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is a potentially useful tool for controlling fall armyworm and other lepidopteran pests of maize in Africa. In the Americas, however, fall armyworm rapidly evolved practical resistance to maize producing one Bt toxin (Cry1Ab or Cry1Fa). Also, aside from South Africa, Bt maize has not been approved for cultivation in Africa, where stakeholders in each nation will make decisions about its deployment. In the context of Africa, we address maize production and use; fall armyworm distribution, host range, and impact; fall armyworm control tactics other than Bt maize; and strategies to make Bt maize more sustainable and accessible to smallholders. We recommend mandated refuges of non-Bt maize or other non-Bt host plants of at least 50% of total maize hectares for single-toxin Bt maize and 20% for Bt maize producing two or more distinct toxins that are each highly effective against fall armyworm. The smallholder practices of planting more than one maize cultivar and intercropping maize with other fall armyworm host plants could facilitate compliance. We also propose creating and providing smallholder farmers access to Bt maize that produces four distinct Bt toxins encoded by linked genes in a single transgene cassette. Using this novel Bt maize as one component of integrated pest management could sustainably improve control of lepidopteran pests including fall armyworm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of the geological uplift and climatic changes during the late Cenozoic on the species diversification of southern African dung beetles is not fully understood. Therefore, we use a divergence-time-estimated phylogeny, macroevolutionary analyses and ecological niche modelling under different climatic scenarios to investigate diversification of the endemic southern African genus, Epirinus. We predict the ancestral range and vegetation type occupied by Epirinus and how late Cenozoic climatic fluctuations and resulting vegetation changes affected speciation and extinction of Epirinus species. Our results suggest that the genus originated in forest with radiation into three geographical centres: (a) north-east escarpment forest and highland grassland; (b) south-east forest; and (c) south-west lowlands to north-east uplands in open vegetation. Reduced speciation rates in the mid-Miocene and increased extinction rates during the drier and cooler Plio-Pleistocene coincide with the replacement of forest by grassland or savanna in southern Africa. The drier climate in southern Africa may have driven extensive contraction of shaded vegetation, forcing an adaptation of forest inhabitants to upland grassland environments, or driving Epirinus species to extinction. Our study supports hypothesis of climatically driven diversification of Epirinus whereas ecological niche modelling across different geological periods suggest that the south-east and, to a lesser extent, the west coast of South Africa as stable areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on women executives' substantive representation is currently drawing serious attention given women's increasing inclusion in cabinets globally. However, these studies rarely question whether women ministers across Africa represent women's interests. Using primary semi-structured interview data conducted with forty-nine interviewees, including seventeen ministers in Nigeria and South Africa, this article explores whether women politicians advocate for women's interests. It centers a critical understanding of the cabinet as an embedded institution, embraces a context-specific understanding of substantive representation, and demonstrates that women ministers' representation of women's interests occurs mostly in nonlegislative ways. It presents an expansive three-level conception of substantive representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cycad aulacaspis scale, Aulacaspis yasumatsui Takagi (Hemiptera: Coccoidea: Diaspididae), is native to Southeast Asia but an invasive pest of the gymnosperm order Cycadales in many parts of the world. Aulacaspis yasumatsui was recently reported on the cycad genus Encephalartos in South Africa and is currently categorized as a 'prohibited terrestrial invertebrate' in the invasive species legislation, National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act, 2004 (NEM:BA). Encephalartos is endemic to Africa, and 11 species are listed as critically endangered and four species as endangered. Seeing the limited distribution of A. yasumatsui in South Africa and only one unconfirmed record from the Ivory Coast, understanding the potential distribution range is essential for control and management. Here we model the potential distribution of A. yasumatsui under current and future climate scenarios in Africa, with a focus on South Africa. Future climatic scenarios were simulated using a bio-climatic software, CLIMEX. The model indicates that, under the current climatic scenario, all 17 African countries possessing Encephalartos are susceptible to A. yasumatsui establishment. However, under climatic change, the suitability decreases for large parts of Africa. In South Africa, 93% of the winter rainfall areas, and 90% of the temperate, summer rainfall areas are suitable for A. yasumatsui establishment. In this study, we highlight the urgent need for regulation, management, and research on A. yasumatsui in African countries with native cycads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The World Health Organization now recommends the use of typhoid conjugate vaccines (TCVs) in typhoid-endemic countries, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, added TCVs into the portfolio of subsidized vaccines. Data from the Severe Typhoid Fever in Africa (SETA) program were used to contribute to TCV introduction decision-making processes, exemplified for Ghana and Madagascar. Methods Data collected from both countries were evaluated, and barriers to and benefits of introduction scenarios are discussed. No standardized methodological framework was applied. Results The Ghanaian healthcare system differs from its Malagasy counterpart: Ghana features a functioning insurance system, antimicrobials are available nationwide, and several sites in Ghana deploy blood culture–based typhoid diagnosis. A higher incidence of antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella Typhi is reported in Ghana, which has not been identified as an issue in Madagascar. The Malagasy people have a low expectation of provided healthcare and experience frequent unavailability of medicines, resulting in limited healthcare-seeking behavior and extended consequences of untreated disease. Conclusions For Ghana, high typhoid fever incidence coupled with spatiotemporal heterogeneity was observed. A phased TCV introduction through an initial mass campaign in high-risk areas followed by inclusion into routine national immunizations prior to expansion to other areas of the country can be considered. For Madagascar, a national mass campaign followed by routine introduction would be the introduction scenario of choice as it would protect the population, reduce transmission, and prevent an often-deadly disease in a setting characterized by lack of access to healthcare infrastructure. New, easy-to-use diagnostic tools, potentially including environmental surveillance, should be explored and improved to facilitate identification of high-risk areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses three credible attempts by African governments to restrict the jurisdiction of three similarly situated sub-regional courts in response to politically controversial rulings. In West Africa, when the Court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) upheld allegations of torture by opposition journalists in Gambia, that country's political leaders sought to restrict the Court's power to review human rights complaints. The other member states ultimately defeated Gambia's proposal. In East Africa, Kenya failed in its efforts to eliminate the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) and to remove some of its judges after a decision challenging an election to a sub-regional legislature. However, the member states agreed to restructure the EACJ in ways that have significantly affected the Court's subsequent trajectory. In Southern Africa, after the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal ruled in favour of white farmers in disputes over land seizures, Zimbabwe prevailed upon SADC member states to suspend the Tribunal and strip its power to review complaints from private litigants. Variations in the mobilization efforts of community secretariats, civil society groups and sub-regional parliaments explain why efforts to eliminate the three courts or narrow their jurisdiction were defeated in ECOWAS, scaled back in the EACJ and largely succeeded in the SADC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have examined the significant involvement of Christian organizations in national-level politics since the revitalization of democracy in Africa in the 1990s, but few have focused on local faith-based organizations engaged in grassroots citizen mobilization. This article compares two such organizations rooted in local communities in Zambia and South Africa in order to elucidate their role. On the basis of interviews, document analysis, and participant observations conducted in 2011, 2013, and 2014, we find that the greater the autonomy a Pentecostal organization enjoys from external partners and the more independence its leader enjoys in decision making, the more likely it is to engage in local citizenship mobilization. However, while these structural factors may facilitate change, they are unlikely to result in new political strategies being pursued unless they are combined with a form of visionary leadership that seeks to promote citizenship. Our findings explain new forms of Pentecostal political involvement, particularly at the grassroots level, by showing how some leaders have used their churches' autonomous structures to promote political engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the transformative nature of 'artisanal frontier mining' in view of sub-Saharan Africa's mining history. Artisanal gold production has generated livelihood earnings for millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet we must go beyond a study of artisanal mining as an individual livelihood choice and consider the sector's internal dynamics. In this sense, the concept of 'labour transformation' is helpful. It refers to a process in which individuals' skill acquisition, economic exchange, psychological reorientation, and social positioning evolve towards a shared occupational identity and collective professional norms, leaving considerable scope for self-governance amongst artisanal miners. This process is captured in the notion of the 'frontier', which in our case refers to occupational rather than geographic locational change. However, the frontier is necessarily of limited temporal duration given the existence of gold as a non-renewable resource, the depth of the gold supply sinking beyond the exploratory and extractive reach of artisanal miners, and the expanding interests of foreign mining corporations and the state. Our argument is illustrated through a comparison of the artisanal mining experiences of two neighbouring countries, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), whose artisanal labour patterns are remarkably similar to each other despite their very different national political contexts and the DRC's recent experience of conflict mineral production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under former President Mbeki, South Africa provoked international dismay and criticism when it tried to block United Nations censure of Burma, Sudan, and Zimbabwe for gross human rights abuses. In the case of Sudan, Pretoria stood accused of turning a blind eye to Khartoum's excessive and indiscriminate violence in Darfur, betraying South Africa's own struggle for democracy and commitment to promoting human rights. This article seeks to shed light on Pretoria's foreign policy by explaining its position on Darfur and exploring the relationship between ideas and interests in shaping the policy. I argue that the position on Darfur was not unfathomable or realist, as some observers claimed, but was based on the core ideas of South Africa's foreign policy: the African Renaissance; quiet diplomacy as the most effective means of dealing with pariah regimes; solidarity with African governments under pressure from the West; and an anti-imperialist paradigm that provided the lens through which the government viewed the global order, defined the country's interests, and conceptualized human rights. Whereas most studies of Pretoria's foreign conduct pay little heed to the policies of the ruling party, I show that the conduct flowed logically from the party's anti-imperialist ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introduction Mental health is increasingly acknowledged as a crucial public health issue in South Africa (SA). However, it is not given the priority it deserves on policy agendas in this and many other low- and middle-income countries. The aim of this analysis is to describe the content of mental health policy and the process of its development in SA. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

AIDS policy in post-apartheid South Africa has been shaped by persistent antipathy towards antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). This hostility was framed initially by President Mbeki's questioning of AIDS science and subsequently by direct resistance to implementing prevention and treatment programmes using ARVs. Once that battle was lost in the courts and in the political arena, the Health Minister, Tshabalala-Msimang, continued to portray ARVs as 'poison' and to support alternative untested therapies. Demographic modelling suggests that if the national government had used ARVs for prevention and treatment at the same rate as the Western Cape (which defied national policy on ARVs), then about 171,000 HIV infections and 343,000 deaths could have been prevented between 1999 and 2007. Two key scientific bodies, the Medicines Control Council (MCC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC) fall under the ambit of the national Department of Health. Although notionally independent, both have experienced political interference as a consequence of their scientific approach towards AIDS. AIDS policy improved after the Deputy President was given responsibility for coordinating AIDS policy in 2006. However, the undermining of the scientific governance of medicine is a legacy that still needs to be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early mammaliaforms and their extinct relatives, nonmammaliaform cynodonts, have long been the focus of intense research in attempting to unravel how and when major changes toward mammalness occurred. The earliest well-known representatives of cynodonts are latest Late Permian in age. Here, we describe Charassognathus gracilis gen. et sp. nov., from the early Late Permian of South Africa, representing the oldest cynodont yet found. This specimen displays a notch on the dentary in the same location as the base of the masseteric fossa in the basal cynodonts Procynosuchus and Dvinia, and represents the first indication in theriodonts of an invasion of occlusal musculature onto the dentary. A phylogenetic analysis of seven therocephalians and ten non-mammaliaform cynodonts and equally weighted characters resulted in nine most parsimonious trees, the strict consensus of which shows a basal polytomy in cynodonts, including Charassognathus, Dvinia, Procynosuchus and a clade including the remaining cynodonts. The basal polytomy in the majority rule consensus tree is reduced, as Procynosuchus and Dvinia form a clade. One most parsimonious tree, from an analysis using implied weights, positions Charassognathus as the most basal cynodont. This result implies that the Cynodontia initially diversified in Permian Gondwana, in what is now southern Africa. © 2007 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2007, 149, 477–492. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study of Basotho attitudes towards and meanings of the Lesotho-South African border along the Caledon River valley, next to what is historically known as the Conquered Territory in the eastern Free State, details the long history of struggle and co-operation between the Basotho and the white inhabitants of the Free State. Analysis of the specific nature of the flow of commodities, trade, labour, and contraband over the Caledon River border bridges during the past ninety years demonstrates that the Caledon is a political rather than an organic social boundary, and that the river itself is the centre of a cross-border way of life, paradoxically both obstructed and united by ‘international’ border stations. The conflictive history of postindependence Lesotho politics reveals how profoundly attitudes towards and relations with South Africa, and specifically the border communities of the Free State, are implicated in every aspect of the country's national existence. The lack of any effective sovereignty for Lesotho has problematic implications for the maintenance of border controls and restrictions on immigration from Lesotho in the post-apartheid period. In practice the border posts can operate with neither credible efficiency nor neighbourly openness, because the border is not an international political or economic boundary and control point but rather a business. Political integration of Lesotho into South Africa in some form is seen as inevitable, notwithstanding the desire and efforts of either or both the Lesotho and South African governments to prevent it.What ‘the Basotho’ ultimately want, independence or no independence, is the continuing development of the Caledon Valley's organic multi-racial way of life. SADC's military intervention in 1998 revealed deep fissures in Lesotho society. Ironically, military intervention to stabilize Lesotho's political situation appears to have accelerated the movement towards eventual i... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the position of the films "Mapantsula" and "Sarafina" in relation to new South African cinema. Oliver Schmitz's "Mapantsula" was made when the region was in a state of emergency. This film locates itself specifically in the 1980s at the time of the rent boycotts in Soweto. Under apartheid the representation of race in the cinema is a primary issue but gender issues are being placed on political and cultural agendas. To make some comparisons with "Sarafina" this film also locates itself in the sociopolitical context. Like "Mapantsula" it is filmed from the perspective of black people and black experience.

Discusses the revision of the immigration policy in South Africa, in relation to cross-border migration. Details on the relevance orthodox international relations theory; Importance of effective management of migration in South Africa.

The article critiques the domination of African labor migration historiography by South African models through a discussion of labor migration patterns and work culture in German colonial Tanzania. The author argues that the focus on migration from the kraal, or southern African agricultural settlements, to European plantations within southern African historiography does not provide an adequate way to understand colonial Tanzanian labor migration. More specifically, the author notes differences between Tanzanian and southern African migration in the areas of capital penetration, peasant involvement in local economies, women's labor migration, and white settlers' ability to implement colonial agricultural policy.

In Durban, South Africa, delegates from South Africa's political center proposed a federal solution to apartheid. Called the KwaZulu/Natal "Indaba," the plan proposes to merge two hitherto segregated jurisdictions and to bring majority rule to at least one province of South Africa. The system envisioned by the plan includes a bicameral legislature, a consociational cabinet, proportional representation, minority veto over certain legislation, a segmented representative chamber, and enforcement of a comprehensive Bill of Rights. The "KwaNatal" plan also calls for a substantial devolution of power, including the right of the provincial legislature to repeal acts of Parliament that invade areas of provincial competence. This determination to extend local, multiracial autonomy put Natal officials on a collision course with the central government at Pretoria, which is trying to eliminate the elected provincial governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the problems of nephrology practice in Sub-Saharan Africa. It says that lack of resources is a major problem on the renal care in many parts of Africa. Rationing of services is practiced in many parts of Africa, including South Africa, resulting in small numbers of patients selected for renal replacement therapy (RRT). Appropriate training and retention of healthcare workers is another major challenge.

The author presents a discussion on several studies including the link between the prevalence of obesity and the increase of greenhouse gas emissions, the association of the fat mass and obesity associated (FTO) gene with cancer risk, and the spatial clustering of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in South Africa. The author laments the reality that research has not reduced HIV transmission in Africa. A wider discussion on the issue of ethics in medical research is also suggested.