OWN CORRESPONDENT, Paris | Sunday AN international rescue operation is afoot in Cameroon to save fewer than ten black rhinos, the last survivors from herds of thousands wiped out by poachers across West Africa over the past two decades. “It is necessary, in fact, to act immediately, because this rhinoceros could disappear very soon,” said […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday TWO military hardware companies are planning to sue South African arms manufacturer Armscor for millions of dollars in separate cases – which, they allege, implicate several former and current top-ranking defence officials in high-level corruption. E-tv news reported that Quantam International Services Limited, with corporate offices in the British Virgin […]
NELSON Mandela’s former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, is trying to patch up her relationship with South African President Thabo Mbeki, while claiming that he had “grievously maligned” her, the Sunday Times reports. The newspaper says that Madikizela-Mandela, the president of the women’s league of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), wrote a “sensational” letter last May […]
A UNITED States-based mini-submarine shipped to South Africa this week to film a shipwreck may be used to survey the rare coelacanth fish, once thought to be extinct. The JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology?s marine fishes curator, Phil Heemstra, said the institute hoped to conduct a survey of the 400-million-year old species of fish. Visuals […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Saturday ZIMBABWEAN police have arrested 97 members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the south of the country following pre-election clashes which the MDC has described as state-sponsored violence. Party leader Morgan Tsvangirai confirmed the arrests, and said the MDC had sent reinforcements to beef up the 50-strong […]
IT took a couple of days, but a 23-year-old Tanzanian proved an informant right when he passed 800g of heroin in 86 packets while in police custody. The man was arrested at Dar es Salaam airport on a flight from Bombay, and eventually passed 86 packets of the drug which he had swallowed before boarding […]
DISABLED beggars in northern Nigeria’s largest city Kano have given the state government two weeks to rescind a ban on street begging or face protests. State authorities last month announced a ban on street begging, which they said had become an organised racket. The practice of begging for alms is widespread in Kano, the second […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Lagos | Saturday A VIGILANTE group – which is backed by authorities in three southern Nigerian states – this week barbarically executed two suspected robbers in public, police admitted. Members of the vigilante group known as the Bakassi Boys – sanctioned by Abia, Anambra and Imo state authorities to tackle high crime levels […]
AT least 18 people have been arrested in a rural district in southern Zimbabwe in pre-election violence that has left at least one person dead, police said. Among those held are members of both the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and the ruling Zanu-PF. Political tension in the Bikita-West constituency has shot up since […]
SHAUN BENTON, Cape Town | Saturday THOUSANDS of banjo-strumming minstrels, complete with blackface, are shrugging off the traditional derogatory label of Coon Carnival in a two-week celebration they hope will rival the annual carnivals in Rio de Janeiro, Notting Hill, and New Orleans. The “klopse”, as they are known, compete for annual prizes, including the […]