The topics you have to be able to discuss this week.
1. RIP apartheid foe Dick Clark
Dick Clark, a liberal US senator who focused on Africa as a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, has died at the age of 95. In 1976, after meeting Soweto schoolchildren and Steve Biko, he introduced the Clark Amendment that cut US aid to Unita in the Angola civil war. Clark, a Democrat, lost his seat in 1978 to a Republican who received secret funding from the apartheid government’s information department headed by Eschel Rhoodie.
2. More bad news
The body of Nigerian rapper MohBad, 27, who died in hospital last month from unknown causes, has been exhumed by Lagos police for an autopsy after widespread protests and vigils. The Afrobeats music industry, in which he was a star, has a dark side involving drug dealers, fraudsters and other criminals who have been blamed for his death. Nigerian media report an arrest has been made.
3. George Smiley lived here
Tregiffian Cottage on the Cornwall coast, where the late John le Carré wrote some of his best-loved spy thrillers — including Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy — is on sale for R69m, cheaper than some Cape Town houses. Nick Cornwell, Le Carré’s son who grew up in the house, says: “Every Le Carré novel from 1970 onwards owes at least some of its genesis and most of its writing time to that house.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.