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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — As schools reopen here in the coming days after the Christmas break, South Africans are braced for a surge in the power cuts that have plagued the country since early December, and the rolling blackouts could spell trouble for the ruling African National Congress at the ballot box. During the week, schools, factories and offices will move to full capacity, drawing on an already-fragile national grid. And in the heat of the Southern Hemisphere summer, air conditioners will be turned on full blast. A state-owned company, ESKOM, has the monopoly to produce more than 95 percent...

Since the coming of “non-racial democracy” in South Africa, ANC-led governing bodies especially at the local level have renamed numerous streets and other public facilities that formerly honored Afrikaner nationalists. Hence the country’s principal international airport at Johannesburg has been renamed to honor Oliver Tambo, a father of the ANC; it formerly was called Jan Smuts, after the twentieth century Afrikaner politician. Now, prodded by the mayor, sentiment seems to be growing to rename Pretoria. Among those who want the change, a consensus favors Tswane, with suburbs (likely mostly white) retaining the name Pretoria. But, as Pretoria is the national...

What's in a name? Centuries of conflict, bloodshed and debate over the ownership of history, if it belongs to a street or city in South Africa. Eighteen years after the demise of white minority rule, the country continues to struggle with the renaming of public spaces that reflect the new order while acknowledging a difficult past. Although there is no shortage of tributes to Nelson Mandela, they still sit cheek by jowl with signs bearing the names of racial apartheid architects such as Hendrik Verwoerd. Nowhere is the debate more intense than in the administrative capital and seat of the...

I was picking up my daughter Monday afternoon at school to take her to a doctor’s appointment when I noticed something that warmed my heart. I saw several different messages in large chalk words around campus. “Stop White South African Genocide” and “Stand Fast South Africa” were chalked throughout my short walk on campus. When I left South Africa in 1998 and brought my family to the United States to flee the genocide of my people, I found that no one knew about what was truly going on or seemed to care. The idea that whites could be the victims...

Cityscape of Pretoria, the capital of South Africa in 2010. The official who oversees South Africa's capital, Pretoria, says the city will have a new name by the end of next year. The mayor of Tshwane municipality, Kgosientso Ramokgopa, says all of Pretoria will be renamed Tshwane by the end of 2012. The ruling African National Congress party has been working for years to rename the capital Tshwane, but the move has been strongly resisted, mainly by white South Africans. Ramokgopa says the issue is currently before the culture minister for approval, adding his municipality would be "resolute and stubborn"...

SNIPPET: "South African police say they have arrested four men in the capital, Pretoria, for attempting to sell what they describe as an industrial nuclear device to undercover officers. The men - all South Africans - were arrested Friday at a Pretoria gas station, where they attempted to sell the device for about $6 million. Police say Interpol was also involved in the operation."

  White South Africans say the name Pretoria is part of a proud history A long-running row over a move to rename the South African capital, Pretoria, is a reminder of the popular significance attached to city names - and the sensitivities that can be stirred by trying to change them.Pretoria was named after a settler and folk hero from the Afrikaner group, which went on to create the apartheid system. It is now expected to take the name Tshwane, after a black tribal leader who ruled long before white colonisation. The name also means "we are the same" in...

JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's capital has renamed itself Tshwane and the 150-year-old name, Pretoria, will only refer to the city center, an official said on Tuesday. Pretoria itself will not include the seat of power, where Nelson Mandela was sworn in as South Africa's first black president in 1994. The African National Congress-dominated council decided to adopt the new name late on Monday and the South African Geographic Names Council, which has the final say, is expected to give its assent. The city's new name comes from a chief who ruled in the area before the Voortrekkers, settlers of...

The security alerts in the US and the UK have also reverberated in South Africa because Pakistani police have raised the possibility that al-Qaida supporters were planning terrorist attacks in Pretoria and Johannesburg. Two South Africans of Asian descent were arrested during the 12-hour gun battle with Pakistani police in the eastern city of Gujrat that led to the capture of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Gujrat's police chief, Raja Munawar Hussainl, alleged yesterday that the two South Africans - Zoubair Ismail, 20, an Islamic student, and...

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe has seized a U.S.-registered cargo plane with 64 suspected mercenaries of various nationalities and a cargo of "military material", Home Affairs (Interior) Minister Kembo Mohadi said on Monday. "A United States of America-registered Boeing 727-100 cargo plane was detained last night at about 19:30 hours at Harare International Airport after its owners had made a false declaration of its cargo and crew," Mohadi said in a statement.

<p>JOHANNESBURG — Jean-Bertrand Aristide faces an uncertain future in Africa, with even his most faithful ally on the continent — South Africa — showing little interest in granting him asylum.</p> <p>The ousted Haitian president arrived in Bangui, the remote capital of the Central African Republic, aboard a U.S.-provided flight from Antigua yesterday after an overnight journey and was whisked to the presidential palace.</p>

<p>PRETORIA, South Africa - Secretary of State Colin Powell defended the administration in its handling of information about Iraqi weapons programs, saying Thursday that President Bush shouldn't have to apologize for a statement that later proved false.</p> <p>Powell's remarks were the administration's strongest defense yet of Bush's decision to include an assertion in his State of the Union speech that Saddam Hussein had sought uranium from Africa.</p>

July 10 — By Randall Mikkelsen PRETORIA, South Africa (Reuters) - President Bush will be ready to decide within days whether to send U.S. peacekeepers to enforce a cease-fire in Liberia, Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Thursday. "I expect that over the next several days...the president will be in a position to make a decision," Powell told reporters covering a trip by Bush to Africa. Whatever role the United States plays will be "very limited in duration and scope," and intended to mainly ensure the arrival of West African peacekeepers under the regional Economic Community of West African...

<p>Pretoria, South Africa -- President Bush received a cool reception Wednesday in the capital of Africa's largest economic power, as opinion leaders here and across the continent complained about his policies on Iraq, AIDS and the International Criminal Court.</p> <p>Bush has come to this long-struggling region with the promise of billions of dollars for development, disease-fighting and counterterrorism efforts, and he carries the prestige of making only the third sub-Saharan Africa tour by a U.S. president. But Africans have responded with anti-Bush protests, diplomatic snubs and critical media coverage.</p>

President Bush Receives Cool Reception in South Africa Policies on Iraq, AIDS, International Court Sources of Criticism By Dana Milbank and Emily Wax Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, July 9, 2003; 12:58 PM PRETORIA, South Africa, July 9 -- President Bush received a cool reception today in the capital of Africa's largest economic power, as opinion leaders across the continent complained about his policies on Iraq, AIDS and the International Criminal Court. Bush has come with many goodies for this long struggling region: the promise of billions of new dollars for development, disease fighting and counter-terrorism efforts, and the prestige...

white teenager has turned up at a police station near Pretoria speaking only an African language and claiming he has been living in the black community since being abducted 12 years ago. The teenager, who answers to the name Happy Sindane, told police in fluent Ndebele that he did not know his original name but gave his date of birth as May 14, 1985 and claimed he had been kidnapped when he was six. Blond-haired and with brown eyes, the slightly-built teenager, said he remembered only fragments of his life with his original family, including his parents' wedding photograph and...