Staff Reporter
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/ 22 August 2000

LANDMINE KILLS FARMWORKER, INJURES 47

A LANDMINE blast has killed a farm worker and injured 47 others, 10 critically, in north-eastern Namibia on the border with Angola, The Namibian newspaper has reported. The explosion occurred on a cotton farm near Omega when a truck carrying farm workers detonated an anti-tank mine planted in the middle of the road by suspected […]

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/ 22 August 2000

US KICKS OUT DRC DIPLOMATS

THE United States has ordered two diplomats from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) expelled from the country in retaliation for the expulsion last week by Kinshasa of two US foreign service officers, a senior State Department official said. ”We have notified the DRC embassy that two Congolese diplomats have been declared persona non grata,” […]

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/ 22 August 2000

Zim police burn war vet houses

AFP, Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe | Tuesday ZIMBABWEAN police have burned down huts and brick houses built by liberation war veterans who occupied a white-owned farm just south of the capital – but the veterans have vowed to stay on the land. A reporter said dwellings erected by the veterans for about 100 black Zimbabweans on the […]

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/ 21 August 2000

Zim officials ‘kidnapped asylum-seekers’

OWN CORRESPONDENT AND REUTERS, Miami | Wednesday TWO Cuban doctors jailed for more than a month in Zimbabwe after declaring their intention to defect have accused the Zimbabwean government of kidnapping them. Leonel Cordova Rodriguez and Noris Pena Martinez, who arrived in Miami earlier this week, told a gathering of jubilant Cuban Americans and local […]

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/ 21 August 2000

VETERAN RIGHT-WINGER MARAIS DIES

A STALWART of right-wing politics in South Africa, Herstigde Nasionale Party (HNP) leader Jaap Marais, has died at the age of 77. One of the gentlemen of South African politics, Marais died in a Pretoria hospital last night barely an hour after being admitted with what is thought to have been a bleeding ulcer. He […]

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/ 21 August 2000

Toddler died ‘for wetting her bed’

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday THE assault that killed a three-year-old toddler – allegedly for wetting her bed – was the culmination of a series of beatings by her father, the Cape High Court has heard. Nicole Bianca Banthom, who died in August 1998 of extensive bleeding on the brain, had died fearing her […]

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/ 21 August 2000

RHINO POPULATIONS ON THE RISE

NEW estimates of rhino numbers in the wild suggest that their populations are higher than they have been since the early to mid-1980s. The African rhino specialist group of the World Conservation Union said today there are just over 13 000 wild rhino in Africa, up from 1992’s estimate of as few as 8 300. […]

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/ 21 August 2000

Return of detention without trial mooted

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday HUMAN rights organisations have expressed reservations about a proposed new anti-terrorism law which allows for terrorism suspects to be detained without trial for up to 14 days, calling it “reminiscent of apartheid-era security legislation.” But Justice Minister Penuell Maduna says he’d like to see the draft Anti-Terrorism Bill, which was […]

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/ 21 August 2000

R2M FORFEITURE GRANTED IN BANK FRAUD

THE Umtata High Court granted a R2m forfeiture order to the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) against a Lusikisiki prosecutor alleged involved in defrauding the Bank of Transkei of R4.6m. National Director of Public Prosecutions spokesperson Sipho Ngwena said that the AFU had the South African Police Service’s outstanding investigation to thank. In 1995 the sum […]

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/ 21 August 2000

NIGERIAN SENATE CUTS OFF CORRUPT HEAD

THE Nigerian Senate is to pick a new head of the upper house of parliament after voting to oust the country’s third-highest ranking official over charges of corruption. Senators were scheduled to pick a successor to Chuba Okadigbo, dismissed by 81 votes to 14 after he refused repeated pleas to resign over detailed allegations made […]