THE Rwandan government has demanded the immediate return of 41 orphans flown to Italy by non-governmental organisation during the 1994 genocide. According to a senior Rwandan official, only 81 out of the 122 orphans had so far been returned from Italy. Rwanda’s justice minister, Jean de Dieu Muco, said in Kigali that the parents or […]

RATS could soon be the next weapon in the fight to detect land mines. A Tanzanian local newspaper reported that a project, a joint enterprise between Sokoine University of Agriculture and a Belgian NGO, is underway to train African giant pouch rats to identify the presence of land mines by smell. The rodents are to […]

Unhappy with your breast size, or plagued by sagging eyelids? Don’t bother calling a plastic surgeon – you can simply place your bids online as a top South African private hospital opens an Internet auction offering a range of plastic surgery operations with a starting price of one rand. Bidders logging on to www.bidorbuy.co.za will […]

JOHANNESBURG businessman Jonty Sandler has pleaded not guilty to a charge of indecent assault in the Pietermaritzburg Regional Court. Sandler allegedly sodomized a security guard at the Himeville Arms Hotel near Underberg on September 10 last year. The 21-year-old guard testified on Monday that Sandler arrived at the hotel around midnight and asked to be […]

GENSEC denied that US investment bank, JP Morgan, had made it a buy-out offer. “We have absolutely not been approached by JP Morgan as far as I am aware,” Gensec CEO Angus Samuels said. He said that Gensec, in its entirety, would be included as part of an eventual merger between Sanlam, Metropolitan and New […]

SOUTH Africa is facing an intensifying drug abuse crisis which sees about half the patients requiring specialist treatment in Gauteng reporting cannabis and/or Mandrax as their primary drug of abuse, according to a report by the Medical Research Council (MRC). Of more concern, says the report, is an increasing shift by mandrax-users to harder drugs […]

ZIMBABWE’S foreign exchange market remain short of hard currency amid increasing calls for a devaluation of the local unit, dealers said. ”Everyone is saying the only solution for our problem right now is a controlled devaluation to bring the exporters back in,” one dealer said. The market has been starved of money as exporters hold […]