International affairs

Journalist Stan Sesser. He is a former staff writer for the New Yorker and the senior fellow of the Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley. Sesser has been following the events leading up to today's takeover of the British-ruled Hong Kong by the Chinese government.

Magubane has been photographing life in South Africa for over 40 years, depicting the reality of life under Apartheid, including the Soweto uprising and the Sharpeville massacre. He was the first black South African to win a photography prize in his country. But he also endured 586 days in solitary confinement, six more months in jail, and five years of "banning" in which he wasn't allowed to work. He's published 11 books.

Earlier this year, 75 year old South Carolina resident Mary Moran had the unique opportunity to go to Sierra Leone with other members of her family. Moran's mother had taught her a song in an African language which had been in the family since an ancestor had been brought over from Africa two hundred years ago. In 1989, through the efforts of anthropologist Joseph Opala and ethnomusicologist Cynthia Schmidt, it had been discovered that this song, composed in the Mende language, was still sung by certain villagers in Sierra Leone.

Alibhai-Brown describes her family's experience as Asians in Uganda in her autobiography "No Place Like Home." (Virago Press) Alibhai-Brown's family, like many others, was forced out of East Africa by president and military leader Idi Amin, twenty-five years ago. Alibhai-Brown moved to England and earned an degree in English at Oxford. Her freelance work is now published in the "Guardian," the "Observer," and the "Independent."

Priscilla Hayner, a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute, New School for Social Research, has been studying truth commissions. She is the author of numerous articles on the subject and is now working to complete a book. She will discuss the importance of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Author Mark Behr talks about his experience spying on his peers as a college student for the South African government and his subsequent public confession of his actions. His novel "The Smell of Apples" (Picador USA) is the story of a young boy growing up in South Africa at the time of apartheid and it explains how a person could be convinced that apartheid is a morally legitimate form of government.

The New York Times' Howard French talks about events in Zaire. Over the weekend talks began between Zaire's president Mobutu Sese Seko and the rebel leader trying to overthrow him, Laurent Kabila. Talks have halted over a disagreement between the two: Mobutu agreed to relinquish power but only to a transitional authority that would organize national elections. But Kabila wants power handed over to him. Meanwhile rebel forces are closing in on Kinshasa. Talks will resume in six to eight days.

Palestinian psychiatrist and human rights activist Dr. Eyad al-Sarraj. He is director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program and is considered an authority on the traumas experienced by children under Israeli occupation. Sarraj has been an outspoken opponent of human rights violations whether committed by Israelis or Palestinians. Recently he was detained and interrogated by Palestinian police because of remarks he made critical of the Palestinian Authority. He was released after nine days following protests by Palestinian and international human rights groups.

Journalist Sean Kelly's 1993 book, "America's Tyrant: The CIA and Mobutu of Zaire" provides context for the unrest now in Zaire. Thirty years ago, Kelly covered Mobutu's rise to power. Kelly was with the Voice of America for twenty years. Now he teaches at American University in D.C.

Journalist Adam Hochschild's recent article in the New Yorker "Mr. Kurtz, I Presume" considers the colonial history of Zaire -- once known as the Congo -- looking for the prototype for Kurtz the fictional greedy ambitious white man of Joseph Conrad's novel "Heart of Darkness."