Yearly Archives: 1999

A TANZANIAN magistrate rejected a defense request on Friday that charges against two defendants in last year’s bombing of the US Embassy in Dar es Salam be dropped because the trial should have began earlier. Egyptian Mustapha Mahmoud Said Ahmed and Tanzanian Rashid Saleh Hemed were charged on September 21 with 11 murder counts each […]

REBELS in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have seized the northern Katanga province town of Lubao, killing ”many” soldiers of Rwanda’s routed Hutu army, a top rebel leader said on Sunday. ”The town was taken on January 27,” Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, the head of the rebel’s political wing, the Congolese Rally for Democracy […]

A TURN-of-the century law that spares rapists punishment if they marry their victims should be scrapped, Egypt’s mufti Sheikh Nasr Farid Wassel said on Sunday.”A rapists’ offer to marry his victim should not replace the punishment which he should face otherwise he will be violating the sharia (Islamic law),” said the cleric, whose views are […]

bloodshed Chris McGreal The KwaZulu-Natal town of Richmond is bracing itself for another bout of bloodshed this weekend with the funerals of assassinated United Democratic Movement secretary general and warlord Sifiso Nkabinde and those killed in a revenge attack on an African National Congress family attending a funeral vigil. Nkabinde’s right-hand man and probable successor […]

Impinging, as it does, on the font of the new South Africa, the row between Judge Johann Kriegler and the government over the organisation of the next general election is obviously a matter of major concern to the country. But we cannot help but fear that it is symptomatic of an even wider and more […]

As the West Indies wind up their humiliating cricket tour of South Africa, they have very little hope of regaining their lost grandeur of the Eighties, argues Cameron Duodo No one will feel as devastated by the 5-0 whitewash of the West Indies by South Africa more than Windies captain Brian Lara. Lara ran into […]

David Shapshak and Joyce Barrett The Cape Town Olympic bid team knew an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member was “available to the highest bidder”, but it did not make use of this information to influence the bid. Caught up in the biggest corruption scandal of the IOC’s 105-year history, disgraced Swaziland IOC member David Sibandze […]

Belinda Beresford Perhaps it’s the scars of a wild youth, the aftermath of a delinquent spouse or the legacy of mismanagement of your money. But a bad credit record can have unpleasant repercussions, including failure to get a bond, credit card, store card, cellphone – all the trappings of a relatively affluent South African. It’s […]

The collapse of Tollgate, the Cape- based conglomerate of which Julian Askin was chair and principal shareholder, and the subsequent examination into its failure have produced one of the most torrid, unpleasant and seamy corporate chapters in South Africa’s history. Formerly a South African resident, Askin mixed a career as a journalist with occasional stockbroking. […]

George Hazeldon believes his proposed self-sufficient community will solve South Africa’s crime problem … for some. Chris McGreal went behind the electric fence George Hazeldon likens his vision to Mont St Michel, the ancient French monastery and fortress. Detractors dismiss the British property developer’s scheme as a fool’s paradise. Either way, the contracts are rolling […]