KENYAN women soldiers will be allowed to marry following sweeping new changes introduced by the country’s Defence Council aimed at restructuring the armed services. Female soldiers will be free to marry either civilians or soldiers, following the integration of the former Women Service Corp into other sectors of the armed forces. However, there are limitations: […]

A NEW bill has been tabled in Parliament that will write off the R4.1bn debt incurred by the former homelands and possibly bury forever unanswered questions on unauthorised spending. The Finance Bill which was approved by the finance portfolio committee, will allow the former homelands to start will a clean slate. The Treasury said that […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Dar Es Salaam | Thursday SMALL-scale gold miners in the Geita district, in northern Tanzania are seeking compensation from Ashanti Goldfields after claiming that they were forcibly evicted from their mines. Local miners in the region are said to have written a letter to the president describing how the Geita district commissioner with […]

OWN CORRESPONDENTs, Pretoria | Thursday AFRIKANER Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) leader Eugene Terre’Blanche has walked out of the Pretoria High Court a “free” man after being released on bail, saying “justice has prevailed” and determined to see that his maize crop is harvested. His release followed a decision by the Department of Correctional Services to release him […]

REUTERS, Abidjan | Thursday THE central bank that serves all the francophone West African countries, the BCEAO, has tightened the minimum reserve requirements for banks in some of the zone’s countries, but not in the area’s biggest economy, Ivory Coast. Previously, minimum obligatory reserves of 3% were required of banks in all eight countries of […]

INDUSTRIAL group Barlow Ltd said it planned to change its name to Barloworld, if shareholders gave their approval. ”The Barlow strategy is to develop an integrated industrial brand management company and, through the introduction of value-based management, enhance shareholder value,” chief executive Tony Phillips said. He said the Barlow name was not unique internationally and […]

ELLIS MNYANDU, Johannesburg | Thursday METALS and minerals group Iscor Ltd reported a sharp drop in headline earnings after taking a knock from losses at its Saldanha Steel joint venture. The group, which is South Africa’s biggest steel maker, forecast higher profits in the current year to June 2001 amid expected gains from iron ore […]

THREE German skinheads on trial for murder have denied they intended to kill a Mozambican man despite admitting to the attack that led to his death, court officials said. Two 16-year-olds, Frank Mietbauer and Christian Richter, and 24-year-old Enrico Hiltricht went on trial this week for the racist murder of 39-year-old Alberto Adriano, who died […]

TAIWAN’S president, Chen Shui-bian, will cut short the final leg of his African tour following a typhoon which killed at least 11 people at home. Chen told a news conference before leaving the West African nation of Burkina Faso for nearby Chad that his visit there would be limited to the signing of a joint […]

RESCUE workers have recovered the bodies of all 143 passengers and crew from the Gulf Air plane which crashed into the Gulf off Bahrain last night, a Bahraini civil defence official said. The Gulf Air Airbus A320, on a flight from Cairo, crashed into shallow waters off the Gulf with an engine on fire as […]