LOOKING BACK

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 50 YEARS AGO

Cabinet ministers have been given the approval of the Prime Minister, Mr. Vorster, to use their official Government cars for transport to political meetings — as long as these meetings are not held in the Ministers’ own constituencies. This came to light yesterday when inquiries were made after a complaint from the United Party that the Minister of Labour, Mr. Marais Viljoen, arrived at a Nationalist Party meeting in Langlaagte on Thursday night in a chauffeur-driven Government car. Mr. Viljoen was driven to the meeting from Pretoria. A spokesman for Mr. Viljoen’s office said that the Minister was entitled to use official transport to attend a party political meeting. — May 24 1970

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 25 YEARS AGO

The World Health Organisation has warned that it expects a “considerable increase” in the number of cases of Ebola virus, which has so far claimed 89 lives out of 114 infected by the outbreak in the Zairean city of Kikwit. The organisation is expected to announce new figures this week, which will include sufferers identified during recent tracing. A 40strong health team is monitoring and containing the virus, which attacks the body’s internal organs and causes severe loss of blood. Death has resulted in 69 percent of cases in the last known outbreak. There is no known cure or vaccine for the virus, which got its name from Zaire’s Ebola River, where it was first identified in 1976. — May 21 1995