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/ 27 February 2001
FRANCIS TEMMAN, Washington | Tuesday WAR and internal conflicts, poverty and a lack of political pluralism all contribute to the woeful human rights situation in Africa, the US State Department said in an annual report released this week. The worst abuses occur in countries rent by civil war or “external intervention,” the department said in […]
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/ 27 February 2001
MORE than 4_000 “ghost” workers have been found on the payroll of Nigerias Lagos State, costing the authorities millions of naira. Earlier this year, the government embarked on a staff audit to determine the exact number of workers in Nigeria’s most populous state. Officials have so far discovered more than 4_000 fake or “ghost” workers, […]
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/ 27 February 2001
CAMEROON authorities have discovered 7_000 fictitious names on the civil service payroll during an audit. The civil service and administrative reform ministry said monthly salaries were being paid out to individuals who were carrying out no official functions, with some having left their posts years earlier. Some cases concerned the names of people who had […]
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/ 27 February 2001
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday THREE police officers and eight other men have been convicted in South Africa’s second biggest cash-in-transit heist, in which they made off with R17.4m and left two security guards dead. The Pretoria High Court convicted the men of carrying out the robbery by ambushing two cash transfer trucks with automatic […]
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/ 27 February 2001
THE Komati River in Mpumalanga’s densely populated Nkomazi region on the border with Swaziland has been contaminated with cholera, health authorities warned. The new contamination has resulted in at least two new cholera infections over the past 48 hours, bringing to 45 the number of confirmed cases in the province. A health education campaign has […]
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/ 27 February 2001
urundian parties have failed to reach consensus on the shape of their future transitional government, despite pressure from African states.
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/ 27 February 2001
SOFTWARE company Ixchange has reported a larger-than-expected headline loss per share of 66.46 cents for the six months to end-December 2000. This compared to headline earnings per share of 15.19 cents a year earlier. Overall, the firm posted a headline loss of R104.5m versus a headline profit of R22.4m previously. Revenue rose 39% to R351.3m […]
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/ 26 February 2001
The Coen brothers (Ethan produces, Joel directs, nominally at least; both write the scripts) have always had a quirky take on things, so it’s not an enormous surprise to find that their new movie, <b>O Brother, Where Art Thou?</b>, is based on Homer’s <i>Odyssey</i>. James Joyce did the same thing with his novel <i>Ulysses</i>, so there is precedent, but the Coens, naturally, make the transposition in their own inimitable way.
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/ 26 February 2001
DARREN SCHUETTLER, Johannesburg | Monday AILING South African steel group Iscor has urged investors to reject what it called an “opportunistic” bid by two major shareholders to shake up Iscor’s board and remove its executive chairman. Anglovaal Mining Ltd (Avmin) and the Industrial Development Corp (IDC), which together hold 26% of Iscor, last week proposed […]