World IN BRIEF : SOUTH AFRICA : Police Fire Tear Gas at 150 Black Children

Police in Soweto township fired tear gas to disperse about 150 black children who staged a protest march over conditions in township schools on the eve of a planned takeover of three vacant white schools. The National Education Coordinating Committee said it planned to occupy the schools “as a last-ditch attempt . . . to find an interim solution” to South Africa’s education crisis. Although apartheid laws have been repealed, schools remain segregated. Several white public schools have been closed because of declining enrollment, while many schools in the black townships are crowded and dilapidated. Amon Msane of the coordinating committee said that thousands of black students would be bused to the vacant white schools to call attention to the problem.