HUNDREDS of endangered giant sable antelope have fled Angola’s Cangandala National Park and run into a region where government and rebel forces have fought over the last week, Angolan radio has reported. The rare antelope is a symbol of Angola, used as an emblem both by the national airline and the national football team. In […]

STEVEN MANN, Cape Town | Tuesday WILLIAM Bantom, the mayor of Cape Town’s metropolitan council, resigned on Tuesday after being caught for the second time viewing pornography in his office. Bantom, an ordained and widely respected minister, was first caught downloading porn sites from the Internet and watching pornographic videos in his office in October […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday MUSLIM vigilante group Pagad’s shadowy G-Force core has been described by police as a “golden thread” running through various acts of terror – including the fatal bombing of Cape Town’s Planet Hollywood – in the Western Cape in the past two years. Police investigating the August 1998 bombing of […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Helsinki | Tuesday ONE or more of the women among the hostages recently released by the Abu Sayyaf group on the Philippine island of Jolo was raped by the rebels, released Finnish hostage Risto Vahanen has revealed to Finnish television MTV3. The hostages included South African couple Callie and Monique Strydom. “We talked […]

BURUNDI army and rebel groups have accused each other of launching major offensives in the run-up to ceasefire talks later this month. ”The army is launching attacks to try to recover ground before direct negotiations start,” rebel spokesman Jerome Ndiho said. ”They are also killing civilians, to scare people so they don’t shelter or give […]

A GUINEAN court has sentenced opposition leader Alpha Conde to five years in prison with hard labour on charges ranging from illegal deployment of armed forces to threatening the security of the state. Thirty-three of Conde’s 43 co-accused, many of them military personnel, were acquitted. The remaining 10 were given sentences of between 18 months […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Delmas | Tuesday THE 32-year-old woman charged with having a 16-year-long sexual relationship with her brother has married her childhood sweetheart – by the same magistrate presiding over the incest case. Heibrecht ”Breggie” Fedder, who is alleged to have been pregnant at least 10 times by her brother, was married in a simple […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT and REUTERS, Harare | Monday RELATIVES of three people killed and one who was allegedly assaulted in the run-up to Zimbabwe’s elections have filed a $400m lawsuit against President Robert Mugabe in the United States. The lawsuit accusing Mugabe of human rights abuses was filed in US District Court in Manhattan on behalf […]

NDIVHUWO MUSETHA and JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Johannesburg | Sunday PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki is expected to announce the axing of two provincial premiers as well as a major cabinet reshuffle when he returns to South Africa from the United Nations Millenium 2000 Summit of world leaders in New York. Speculation is mounting that the African National Congress […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT and REUTERS, Johannesburg | Monday SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki has restoked the ongoing controversy over Aids in an interview with US-based news magazine Time, in which he reiterates that he believes HIV is not the only cause of the disease. “No, I am saying that you cannot attribute immune deficiency solely and […]