A POLITICAL slanging match over a Swazi chieftaincy has erupted into a media reform row after Information Minister Mntonzima Dlamini banned two chiefs from using the airwaves but allowed King Mswati III’s brother to continue airing his views. After banning his two opponents, the minister said Magugu could continue making announcements over the national radio […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Sunday THE ousted leader of Zimbabwe’s war veterans association has been reinstated as the leader of the group that occupied white-owned farms in the run-up to the country’s June elections. Chenjerai “Hitler” Hundzvi was ousted from the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association last weekend after being accused of running the […]

GROOTE Schuur Hospital’s world-renowned heart transplant unit faces possible closure if a new quota system is introduced forcing the hospital to perform perhaps only five heart transplants a year, the Cape Argus newspaper has reported. This would shut off access to heart transplants – and the consequent chance at a new life – for the […]

PANDEMONIUM broke out in the Cape High Court when the four Franschhoek Pass murderers were each sentenced to two life terms in prison. Relatives of the accused started shouting as the sentences were passed, forcing the judge to raise his voice in an attempt to complete the sentencing of Heinrico Pietersen, 18, Morne Lakay, 23, […]

A FORMER Rwandan army major accused of murdering his prime minister and 10 Belgian UN peacekeepers has begged a Tanzanian court not to extradite him to Rwanda, saying he feared execution. Bernard Ntuyahaga, 48, is wanted in Rwanda for the 1994 murder of Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and the UN troops sent to protect her […]

THE price of petrol will rise by a further six cents a litre – and diesel by 15 cents a litre – from September 6, the Department of Minerals and Energy has announced. The increase follows a surge in international crude oil and petroleum product prices close to their highest level since the 1991 Gulf […]

Cape Flats residents who were left homeless after last year’s tornado feel that the municipality has not done enough to provide new housing Marianne Merten A year to the day after her daughter Ghaironisah Moosa was killed when a tornado hit Manenberg on the Cape Flats, Maraldia Ajam died. The elderly woman lived for much […]

Belinda Beresford It’s all in the packaging! That, at least, is the hope of the Department of Health, which has decided that colour counts in the battle against Aids. In an attempt to make condoms more popular among the majority population, government-sponsored Condom Cans could soon be stocked with brown condoms as well as the […]

Jaspreet Kindra The tensions within the tripartite alliance are increasingly being blamed on President Thabo Mbeki, who is perceived by other alliance leaders as having systematically cut them off from debate on economic policy. Notwithstanding this view, expressed by several senior members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu)and the South African Communist […]

Ivor Powell As the world gears up to ban diamonds from conflict zones, the Canadian government is being accused of manipulating a United Nations humanitarian campaign against Africa’s so-called “blood diamonds” to the benefit of its own fledgling industry. The UN’s report, published earlier this year, was initiated and headed by Canada’s ambassador to the […]