AN Italian nun has been shot dead in Burundi, Catholic missionary news agency Misna reported. Sister Gina Simionato, 55, was hit by gunfire as she returned with other sisters from mass in the town of Gihiza, about 90 km east of the capital Bujumbura. At least one colleague was injured. It was not immediately clear […]

THE bad smell of match-fixing continues to hover over cricket and corruption will again take centre stage when the game’s governing body, the International Cricket Council, begins its executive board meeting this week. During the ICC Trophy tournament, one saga reached a climax while another threatened to unfold. Former South African captain Hansie Cronje was […]

ZIMBABWE riot police have sealed two Harare townships after residents blocked roads to prevent people from going to work in protest against soaring food prices, witnesses said. Hundreds of police, armed with batons and shields, teargas canisters and automatic rifles, also patrolled central Harare after rumours that angry youths were heading there for a demonstration […]

SOUTH African mining group Anglovaal Mining Ltd’s (Avmin) controlling shareholders and other investors are pooling their resources to maintain long-term control over the group under the control of the Menell family. ”It is Arctic’s intention to acquire additional ordinary shares in Avmin to establish a measure of sustainable long-term control,” the group said. Avmin has […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, AFP | Saturday LAND mines have killed at least 100 people and injured 327 others in Angola during the first six months of the year, a UN report said this week. A total of 427 accidents involving land mines were documented in the report by the UN Office Charged with Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA). […]

SOUTH Africa has lost six huge, bright orange fuel storage tanks, adrift on an iceberg “somewhere in the southern oceans,” Finance Minister Trevor Manuel told parliament this week. “The tanks, admittedly, were hard to lose,” he said. “Normally they sit on a huge ice-shelf, about 300m high, that projects from the edge of Antarctica into […]

MOZAMBIQUE’S former rebel leader Afonso Dhlakama said President Joaquim Chissano will be responsible for whatever happens should police attempt to disarm guards at his home. His statements come two days after Mozambique police in the central port city of Beira seized 18 firearms, ammunition and military radios in raids on the homes of several Renamo […]

A SOUTH African driver is facing charges in Namibia after his car-transporter nearly collided with a motorcade carrying presidents Eduardo dos Santos of Angola and Laurent Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Disaster for the two heads of state was narrowly averted when their 15-vehicle motorcade made way for Andries Nienaber, 45, from […]

EMSIE FERREIRA, Cape Town | Friday THE South African parliament has approved strict firearm controls which government says embodies South Africans’ indignation at rampant violent crime, but opposition says robs people of the right to self-defence. “Many a farmer’s wife will die, pistol in hand, under a shower of automatic fire,” charged General Constand Viljoen, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT | Sunday THE Free State provincial government’s education ministry has joined its counterpart in the Northern Province and issued instructions to farmers to sign contracts that cede portions of their land away for educational purposes – or face expropriation, reports the Sunday Independent. The Free State Agricultural Union (FSAU) has endorsed the province’s […]