OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday GOVERNMENT has created three home-grown mutant superheroes as the stars of a campaign to raise awareness of the effects of alien vegetation, which drain billions of litres of water from South Africa’s reserves each year. Bionic Bug, Mechanical Man and Chemical Can will be the heroes of AlienBuster Week, which […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT AND JEREMY LOVELL, Cape Town | Thursday THE South African Human Rights Commission (HRC) has slammed government plans to bring in a tough anti-violence law after a spate of bombs in Cape Town, saying they were ”unnecessary and potentially unconstitutional.” ”We are very uneasy about the possibility of a law against terrorism in […]

MALAWIAN President Bakili Muluzi has sued a newspaper for publishing a story that claims he masterminded a $2m government corruption scheme. The independent weekly Chronicle said Muluzi organized a scheme to award building contracts to supporters, who in turn gave money to his party for last year’s general elections. The newspaper based its story on […]

SOUTH African meat producers say neighbouring countries are overreacting by banning meat imports after an isolated outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Namibia, Botswana and Mauritius have all banned imports of South African pork, cattle and sheep from the affected KwaZulu-Natal province, where the outbreak occurred on a single farm, and neighbouring Mpumalanga. The National Director of […]

SOUTH African financial services group Corpcapital Bank has received approval to set up a company to strip and market the components of domestic government bonds for the first time. South Africa’s Bond Exchange (BESA) had given the go-ahead to list the special purpose company, Stripco Ltd, to acquire the debt, break it up into interest […]

SIERRA Leone’s government forces have captured three bases from the West Side Boys, the maverick militia who held British soldiers hostage for over two weeks, state radio said. The West Side Boys seized 11 British soldiers and a Sierra Leonean officer on August 25. They released five Britons shortly afterwards, and British troops freed the […]

TWELVE people died in Algeria, including seven Muslim rebels, in the latest wave of clashes with security forces, local newspapers reported. A group of unidentified men shot dead five civilians and burnt their bodies in the town of Bou Ismail, 60km west of Algiers, while army soldiers killed seven Muslim rebels and captured two others […]

PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki has told parliament there is no need to put pressure on Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe over the seizure of white-owned farms, saying illegal land seizures should not be tolerated, but the redistribution of land left in white hands as a legacy of colonialism had to be addressed urgently. Mbeki repeated that if […]

A UNIT of South African natural resources giant Anglo American Plc says its Zambia mining operations will break even by the end of the year despite current losses. Anglo’s Zambia Copper Investments (ZCI) is the majority shareholder in Konkola Copper Mines Plc (KCM), which bought Zambia’s Nchanga and Konkola copper mines and the Nampundwe pyrite […]

A SUMMIT aimed at consolidating a fragile peace deal in Burundi has ended in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi with no ceasefire accord but an appeal by mediators for all sides to cease hostilities. Although mediator Nelson Mandela had persuaded most of Burundi’s political parties to sign a peace deal last month, the two main […]