So the sporting protest is alive and well – though cuffing yourself to the goalpost because Ryanair won't give your daughter a job is not quite the same as the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa. What next? A mass demonstration against EasyJet's excess baggage policy?

Christmas books of the year

The all-rounder's form in 1968 made it hard to exclude him from the South Africa tour that never was, writes Stephen Brenkley

The South African government has conceded that 30 per cent of land it has bought since the end of apartheid for redistribution to black farmers has been resold by the beneficiaries, often to the original owners.

Ink artist Clifford Charles is to have his latest collection exhibited at Pallant House Gallery next week.

The death of Magnus Malan marks the passing of one of the most powerful and notorious leaders of the apartheid era. To his enemies, he was a figure of fear and hatred – one of the monsters of an evil system; to his colleagues and subordinates he was a figure of awe – the general who reorganised the military and then reorganised the country along military lines.

One of the most hated figures of South Africa's apartheid regime, the former defence minister Magnus Malan, has died at the age of 81.

The former South African President Nelson Mandela spent his 93rd birthday with friends and relatives in his rural hometown Monday, as South Africans paid tribute to the anti-apartheid icon through song and community service projects.

It took the best part of 27 years, but the runner wearing number 2621 at Granite Regional Park in Sacramento on Wednesday, finally made it on to the podium at a global event in the state of California. Running in the 8km women's age 45 to 49 cross country race on the opening day of the World Masters Athletics Championships, Zola Pieterse finished second in 29min 19sec – 33 seconds behind Soledad Castro Solino of Spain.

When Kader Asmal became Minister of Water Affairs in the liberated South Africa he gave urgent priority to one small but rewarding project; connecting clean drinking water to the home of the widow of Chief Albert Luthuli, Nobel Peace laureate and one-time president of the African National Congress. He saw Luthuli, a non-violent Methodist minister, as his mentor. Asmal was noted for his robust criticism of the ANC government's drift away from the protection of human rights. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said he had "served his people and his nation without a thought of self-enrichment or aggrandisement. Short of stature, big of heart and mind, he enriched us all."

South Africans are mourning a woman celebrated for her role in the fight against apartheid, and for her nurturing of a new generation of leaders.