IN BRIEF BABY SMUGGLER PLEADS GUILTY
A SOUTH African woman accused of accidentally smothering her baby to death while trying to smuggle her into the United States will plead guilty to charges of alien smuggling, her defence attorney Dan Oliverio said on Thursday. Galiema Begg agreed to plead guilty in the hope of getting a reduced charge, Oliverio said. He added that her admission of guilt is “no guarantee” she will not be jailed. Begg told authorities she wanted to introduce her baby to her parents in Miami, and had resorted to smuggling after repeatedly being denied a visa. Begg’s brother Achmat Begg and uncle Mohamed Tahir Toffie have agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges, and face possible deportation.
GAUTENG SUPPORTS WORLD HERITAGE SITE
THE Gauteng executive committee on Thursday said it supports the nomination of the Sterkfontein Valley as one of South Africa’s proposed World Heritage sites. Recommendations after public hearings were that the valley and Tswaing crater be be nominated from the province. Sterkfontein Valley, Robben Island and St Lucia Wetlands were then proposed by Environmental Affairs Minister Pallo Jordan. The valley contains evidence of 3,5-million-year-old of human ancestors, and is recognised internationally as paleoanthropologically important.
550 CORPSES FOUND ON SIERRE LEONE ISLAND
THE bodies of more than 550 people have been found in two shallow mass graves on Sherbro Island in southern Sierra Leone. It is believed the dead were buried after retreating junta naval forces bombarded the island, as intervention forces squeezed them from the country’s capital, Freetown. Mass graves have also been found in the Bo, Mattru Jong and Kenema districts. It is not clear whether the dead in some cases were killed by violence or disease.
ZIM RAISES FUEL COSTS
THE embattled Zimbabwe government hesitantly raised the price of aircraft fuel and cooking gas by between 34% and 16% on Thursday, five months after a currency crash rocketed import prices through the roof. Transport Minister Enos Chikowore said the Zimbabwe dollar’s 45% fall in November makes the rise in fuel prices unavoidable. Economists on Thursday speculated that state-owned fuel procurement company National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim) is losing around Z$1-million a day. They estimate that Noczim will have to raise fuel costs by 30% just to meet the cost of imports. The government is reportedly deeply anxious about the rise, since a bid to raise fuel tax — among other taxes — by 15% prompted a nationwide strike in January.
CLINTON VISITS SLAVE MONUMENT
UNITED States President Bill Clinton ended his 12-day, six-nation African extravaganza by visiting a monument to the slave trade on Goree Island on Senegal’s west coast on Thursday. Clinton was to deliver a speech on the island outlining his vision for US-African partnerships. Clinton will not, his aides hastened to point out, issue an official apology for slavery.
‘GRACELAND’ FOR SALE
ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace has placed a mansion, built with state funds, on the market for Z$25-million. Grace intends to pay the government back the Z$6-million she used from a state housing scheme to build the house, leaving herself with a tidy Z$19-million ($1,8-million) profit. The house, dubbed “Gracelands”, is in the Harare suburb of Borrowdale and overlooks a golf course. President Mugabe last month angrily denied a report that he is planning to buy a castle in Scotland.
CABLEWAY LEFT HANGING
THE Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company has temporarily scrapped plans to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange following a bitter dispute with the Cape Town city council regarding its R100-million cableway upgrade. The council insists that the company transgressed agreed conditions of approval when it upgraded the upper cableway station on Table Mountain. It claims that extra windows were inserted, while others were enlarged without permission, leading to complaints about “light pollution” at night. The dispute is being reviewed by the National Monuments Council committee.
OIL IN SAO TOM
AN American company claimed on Wednesday to have discovered oil in the territorial waters of Sao Tom and Principe islands off the West African coast. Environmental Remediation Holding Corporation vice-president Noreen Wilson met Prime Minister Raul Braganca Neto to inform him of the preliminary findings of the company’s offshore oil exploration on Wednesday. The company entered a joint venture with the government of Sao Tom and Principe to develop the African country’s oil and gas reserves last year. The results of the exploration will be released in June.
PW BOTHA COMPLAINS ABOUT DOCTORS
FORMER president PW Botha has lodged a complaint with the South African Medical and Dental Council against two former Groote Schuur Hospital neurologists who submitted affidavits to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission saying that a stroke has left him unfit to stand trial. Botha’s trial for disobeying a subpoena to testify before the TRC continues on April 14. He contends that the submissions of Professors Derek Philcox and Kay de Villiers, which he did not request, breach patient-doctor confidentiality. Botha also asked the SAMDC to investigate whether the TRC’s decision to publish the affidavits contravened professional rules.
IFP SACKS MZIMELA
CORRECTIONAL Services Minister Sipo Mzimela, who has been at loggerheads with the Inkatha Freedom Party leadership since he advocated merger talks with the ANC last year, has lost his job as deputy chairman of the party. A one-line statement announced that Arts, Culture, Science and Technology Minister Lionel Mtshali has been appointed acting deputy national chairman. Mzimela has ostensibly resigned due to ill health.