World Notes SOUTH AFRICA

The banner headline in the Johannesburg Star summed up the historic day: APARTHEID'S PILLARS COME CRASHING DOWN. South Africa's white-dominated Parliament last week repealed the notorious Land Acts and the Group Areas Act, which divided residential areas along racial lines and restricted land ownership by blacks, reserving 87% of the country's land for whites. Now blacks will be free to buy, use or rent land and property anywhere in South Africa. The scrapping of the legislation was a victory for President F.W. de Klerk, who pledged last February to get rid of all remaining discriminatory laws by the close of the parliamentary session on June 30.

While the action was symbolically important, in practice there will be little visible change. Only a small number of middle-class blacks are yet able to afford houses in the plush white suburbs, and many of the cheaper inner- city apartment blocks have been unofficially multiracial for years. At the same time, the government has so far opposed any moves to restore land confiscated during the apartheid era to the original black owners.