If the name Kasrils rings a bell it’s because Andy is the son of anti-apartheid struggle veterans Ronnie and Eleanor Kasrils. His family, ANC exiles, left South Africa for the United Kingdom in the 1960’s and didn’t return until 1994 when his father accepted the position of Deputy Minister of Defence in Nelson Mandela’s government.
Monthly Archives: February 2014
The first people to settle in the Johannesburg area in large numbers seem to have been Iron Age Tswana-speakers. These early ‘Joburgers’ came from the Magaliesburg Valley north of Johannesburg about 800 years ago, though they probably came from northern Tanzania over 1 500 years ago.
The process that will be used to extract the gas – hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’ – is carried out by drilling deep into the earth and injecting hundreds of millions of litres of a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemicals into shale rock, which in turn releases shale gas. The flow-back liquid from this process is highly radioactive.
The history of Rastafari in Jamaica is marred by not so sweet stories. Nevertheless, sweeping it under the rug does the country no good and clearly says “Jamaica is still ashamed of Rastafari”. While the Jamaican establishment laments Rasta’s lack of political mobilisation and the fact that they often operate on the fringes of the economy, there is no denying the deep cultural impact they have had on the island.