NEW YORK, Oct 15, 2007 (AFP) - Victims who filed suit for 400 billion dollars against US businesses allegedly complicit with the former South African apartheid regime have found new hope following a federal court ruling.

'The Appeals Court decision is a major victory,' said Michael Hausfeld, a lawyer for the victims on the heels of Friday's decision by a Manhattan federal court.

Hausfeld said the ruling 'enables victims of terrible human rights abuses to hold those who aided and abetted those abuses accountable.

JOHANNESBURG, Sept 14, 2007 (AFP) - Poppy Buthelezi, shot by South Africa's police on the first day of the June 1976 Soweto uprising and since confined to a wheelchair, has died aged 48, her close companion said on Friday.

Buthelezi was shot in the back on June 16 when the police of the country's then white minority regime opened fire on demonstrating students, sparking off the nationwide uprising that led eventually to the end of apartheid in 1994 when South Africa's first democratic elections were held.

CAPE TOWN, Sept 12, 2007 (AFP) - South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki lamented lingering racism and black submissiveness on Wednesday in paying tribute to black consciousness leader Steve Biko, killed by apartheid police 30 years ago.

The challenge Biko had lain down to black people, to reclaim their dignity, had not lost its relevance since South Africa's whites-only rule ended 13 years ago, the president told a Steve Biko memorial lecture in Cape Town.

JOHANNESBURG, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Thirty years after dying in prison in apartheid South Africa, Steve Biko remains a historical icon, even if his 'Black Consciousness Movement' no longer carries political weight.

A fervent anti-apartheid and freedom activist, Biko's popularity in the new South Africa is rooted in culture, providing ideas for the shaping of the identity of young blacks rather than formal politics.

PRETORIA, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) - South Africa's apartheid-era police minister Adriaan Vlok was handed a 10-year suspended jail sentence Friday after pleading guilty to the attempted murder of a leading black activist 18 years ago.

In a plea bargain with prosecutors, Vlok, his former police chief Johann van der Merwe and three other former security officials, all admitted seeking to kill Frank Chikane in a case that has reopened the debate on justice for crimes committed during white-minority rule.

PRETORIA, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) - South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) welcomed Friday the guilty plea of an apartheid-era minister over the attempted murder of a leading black activist 18 years ago.

'We regard today's developments as a step towards healing the wounds of the past and hope that more people would come forward and make full disclosure regarding their participation in apartheid crimes,' the ANC said in a statement.

PRETORIA, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) - South Africa's apartheid-era police minister Adriaan Vlok was handed a 10-year suspended jail sentence Friday after pleading guilty to the attempted murder of a leading black activist 18 years ago.

In a plea bargain reached with prosecutors, Vlok, his former police chief Johann van der Merwe and three other former security officials, all admitted seeking to kill Frank Chikane, currently a senior aide to President Thabo Mbeki, by having his clothes laced with poison.

PRETORIA, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) - South Africa's apartheid-era police minister Adriaan Vlok was handed 10-year suspended jail sentence Friday after pleading guilty to the attempted murder of a top opponent to white rule 18 years ago.

In a plea bargain agreed with state prosecutors, Vlok and his former police chief Johan van der Merwe admitted seeking to kill Frank Chikane, now a top aide to President Thabo Mbeki, by having his clothes laced with poison.

PRETORIA, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) - South Africa's apartheid-era police minister Adriaan Vlok appeared in court Friday, charged with the attempted murder of a top aide to President Thabo Mbeki during the country's white minority rule.

Rival protestors greeted Vlok as he arrived with his four co-defendants: his former police chief Johann van der Merwe, former major-general Christoffel Smith and colonels Gert Otto and Johannes Van Staden.

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - An apartheid-era South African police minister goes to trial for attempted murder Friday in a case that has dredged up old political crimes and dragged a former president into the ensuing fray.

Adriaan Vlok, law and order minister at the height of apartheid rule in the mid-1980s, will enter the dock with four former senior policemen on five charges, including an attempt on the life of a top aide to current president Thabo Mbeki.