Yearly Archives: 2001

A SWAZILAND chief allegedly caught growing a dagga field has got off scot-free because the kingdom has not completed the codification of Swazi law and custom. At the moment, traditional law allows chiefs to grow dagga in Swaziland for personal and medicinal use, but not for commercial use. Chief Cetjwako Mndzebele’s plantation was discovered by […]

ZAMBIAN President Fredrick Chiluba, in a desperate move to salvage his country’s depreciating currency, has appealed to investors and businessmen to immediately stop quoting prices in US dollars. President Chiluba said the rapid depreciation of the Zambian kwacha had resulted from high demand for the US currency, which is now closer to legal tender than […]

ZAMBIAS ruling party is to hold an extraordinary national congress to decide on whether to change the party’s constitution to allow President Frederick Chiluba to seek a third term, a top official said. Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) national secretary Michael Sata said members from across Zambia have petitioned for a special convention to decide […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Maputo | Thursday THE long-awaited fifth and final tollgate on the R2bn N4 highway between South Africa’s industrial heartland of Gauteng and the Mozambican port of Maputo has opened, in spite of a strike by construction workers and widespread community resistance to the toll road. The protests had already delayed the opening of […]

SOUTH Africa’s transport ministry has closed the Skukuza airport in the Kruger National Park because it failed to comply with safety regulations. The ministry said the airport’s licence had not been renewed when it expired on October 31, but that it continued operations under an exemption granted to allow it to improve its rescue and […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Thursday SAFETY and Security Minister Steve Tshwete has agreed to commission independent research into the motives behind South Africas ongoing farm attacks, which killed at least 119 people last year. Agri SA president Japie Grobler said such an inquiry could help find ways to curb the ongoing onslaught on the farming […]

NIGERIAS human rights commission has ordered the arrest of the head of the country’s prison service and three police officers. Commission Chairman Justice Chukwudifu Oputa ordered the four men to be arrested for failing to answer a summons to appear. Those summonsed are Comptroller-General of Prisons Mohammed Jarmah, Assistant Commissioner of Police Kehinde Oyenuga and […]

ILDA JACOBS, Washington DC | Thursday SOUTH Africa’s old school days, where children were forced to walk silently in single file and were sharply caned into submission, are horribly familiar in a 17-minute film produced in the United States by former Capetonian Greg Watt. Watt, an independent filmmaker, doesn’t identify South Africa in the film, […]

AMNESTY International has called on French and African leaders who meet for a summit this week in Yaounde, Cameroon, to make a joint public commitment to end torture and ill-treatment in custody. The London-based rights group said the torture of detainees by government agents persists with impunity in the majority of countries represented at the […]

RENNIES, the wholly owned travel and foreign exchange division of trading and services group Bidvest, has set up a new bank. The new entity, Rennies Bank, aims to achieve a pre-tax profit of R75m in its first full year to June 2002 and a return on equity far in excess of those of its major […]