LEGISLATORS from northern Nigeria are to visit three Middle Eastern countries to study implementation of the strict Islamic code. All 40 lawmakers from the assembly in Kano State will leave for a two-week fact-finding trip to Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The visit is to prepare for the introduction of Islamic law, Sharia, in Kano […]

THE Nigerian government has approved the establishment of a new bank to help the country’s struggling agricultural sector. The Agricultural Cooperative and Rural Development Bank, formed by the merger of three existing agencies, will help the sector to expand, said Agriculture Minister Hassan Adamu. The minister did not set out how the bank would work […]

TRADITIONAL leaders have expressed hope that President Thabo Mbeki will find an interim solution to their concerns to avoid conflict with municipalities after the local government elections on 5 December. The government and traditional leaders have been at loggerheads on the new municipality boundaries, which the chiefs say encroach on their powers. The dispute resulted […]

CHINA has won the support of African allies against linking international economic and political ties to human rights issues at the first Forum of Sino-African Cooperation in Beijing. “The politicisation of human rights and the imposition of human rights conditions on economic assisstance should be vigorously opposed as they constitute a violation of human rights,” […]

THE African National Congress is to announce which senior party leaders it would like redeployed as mayors of the country’s main cities, but the list is said not to include cabinet ministers. ANC Western Cape MPL Lynn Brown has been tipped for Cape Town, Port Elizabeth’s current mayor Nceba Faku is expected to hold on […]

SUSAN NJANJI, Harare | Thurssday ZIMBABWE’S blanket amnesty for politically motivated crimes committed before this year’s parliamentary elections is a green light for political violence in the run-up to presidential elections, analysts say. President Robert Mugabe’s order, issued last week, does not cover serious crimes such as murder and rape, but critics are already warning […]

TWO trains crashed head-on in remote western Zimbabwe, killing 15 people and injuring at least 20 others. Police said the dead were mostly on a passenger train headed to Victoria Falls from the western provincial capital of Bulawayo, which collided with a freight train headed south on the boundary of the Hwange nature preserve, the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday TELKOM has introduced a new fraud management system to clamp down on illegal use of its network which cost the South African telecommunications parastatal more than R300m last year. “The new system detects fraud as it is happening, which will greatly reduce our risks and losses,” said Ken Raley, managing […]

A FURTHER 115 cases of cholera were reported in KwaZulu-Natal this week and a total of 22 deaths have been recorded since the outbreak of the disease. Provincial health spokesman Roz Jordan said 62 of the cases were reported in Eshowe and 53 in Ngwelezane, pushing the number of cases reported since the outbreak in […]

South Africa’s newest financial institution, Teba Bank, will focus on mobilising the savings and developing rural communities financially, chief executive officer Jenny Hoffman said. Teba, which for the past 24 years provided basic banking services to miners, will now target low income earners and those not formally employed in rural areas. Hoffman said the bank […]