Top stories: news and views from around the world

Denis Norman 1931-2019: The Odd (White) Man In Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe
Picture shows: John Laurie, President of the CFU with June and Denis Norman in Harare (Picture: Alexander Joe) By TREVOR GRUNDY Family and friends gathered at All Saints Church at… Read more >

Guy Arnold, leading British anti-apartheid activist, dies at the age of 87
By TREVOR GRUNDY The British explorer, writer, scholar and anti-apartheid campaigner Guy Arnold died in London on Saturday January 4. He was 87. Arnold was a prolific author and journalist… Read more >

Christians in Europe share a common memory of the murdered saint who defied an English king
By TREVOR GRUNDY Thomas Becket, the 12th century’s “turbulent priest” whose murder in Canterbury Cathedral on December 29, 1170 brought a powerful mediev0al monarch to his knees during a… Read more >

Yesterday in Paradise – A Goan journalist remembers days of sunshine and sorrow in Kenya
Review by TREVOR GRUNDY “History,” says a character in Louis de Bernieres’s novel Captain Corellis’s Mandolin,”ought to consist only of the anecdotes of the little people who are… Read more >

Forty years ago in Mozambique – a death that changed the face of post-Independence Zimbabwe
By TREVOR GRUNDY Forty years ago on December 26 the man who led the forces of ZANLA throughout Chimurenga Two never made it home from exile. At the… Read more >

Death of Denis Norman in England
Denis Norman 1931-2019 Denis Norman, Zimbabwe’s first minister of agriculture after Independence in 1980, has died in Oxfordshire, England (Friday December 20) after a long battle against… Read more >

Fascism: Anti-Semitism and an author’s walk down memory lane
Memoir of a Fascist Childhood (William Heinemann, 1998) and Arrow Books (1999). b y Trevor Grundy Reviews of this 20 plus years old book were published in several… Read more >
Investigative journalist pays £90,000 to go free in Magufuli’s independent media bashing Tanzania
25th February 2020 A report in The Times (today) said that Erick Kabendera was persuaded to admit money laundering and tax vasion to get out of prison. But he was… Read more >

Gandhi: Will he be the next victim of Britain’s ‘politically correct’ militants?
While a student campaign has failed to stop a statue of Mahatma Gandhi being raised in Manchester, the row over his bigoted attitudes continues to rage – including in India…. Read more >
Hot spots and danger zones in the age of climate change
An Environmental History of India – From earliest times to the Twenty-First Century by Michael H. Fisher (Cambridge University Press, 2018 /301 pp./£21.99) Trevor Grundy on an unsettling book… Read more >