MPUMALANGA Premier Mathews Phosa dismissed press reports on Wednesday that he is being investigated for possible corruption by a top-level African National Congress team. The reports in The Star contend that Phosa is being investigated for allegedly benefiting from an illegal promissory note deal worth over R1,3-billion, as well as the earlier R25-billion Dolphin deal. […]

A KENYAN court Wednesday sentenced three foreigners to three months in prison each for smoking and causing a disturbance aboard a Kenya Airways flight from Lagos to Nairobi. Aboubakar Omar Hussein and Ramadhan Faiz Abeid of Tanzania and Nalillakaren Appu of India were charged with committing the offences on Tuesday aboard Kenya Airways flight KQ-433. […]

THE International Cricket Council (ICC) announced on Monday that it will establish an independent commission to investigate allegations of corruption in the sport. ICC chief executive David Richards said cricket’s nine test-playing nations unanimously agreed to relinquish some of their sovereign powers by handing jurisdiction over to the ICC. Richards said the countries also agreed […]

FODAH Sankoh, the leader of the Sierra Leonean rebel movement whose forces invaded Freetown last week, is in protective custody in Conakry, diplomatic sources said on Wednesday. Fighting between his Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and Nigerian-led West African ECOMOG intervention troops continued on Wednesday in the Sierra Leonean capital, according to the missionary agency Misna. […]

CONGO’S President Denis Sassou Nguesso reshuffled his government on Tuesday and named a defence minister as part of his battle against rival militiamen of the previous government. The main change in the reshuffle, officially announced late on Tuesday, is the naming of one of Sassou Nguesso’s aides, Lekounzou Iti Osetoumba, to run defence affairs with […]

A SECOND suspect faced murder charges in Soweto’s Protea Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday in connection with last week’s ambush of a Soweto police van and subsequent mass escape of awaiting trial prisoners. Sowetan Lawrence Dube (22) was charged with the murder of Sergeant Christopher Sithebe and Sergeant Elias Matima Senwamadi in a bloody ambush last […]

SHEPHERD “Mzimba” Kiviet will replace Stanley Christodoulou at the helm of the South African National Boxing Control Commission, according to the body’s outgoing chairman, Peter Ngatane. Christodoulou resigned just before Sports Minister Steve Tshwete fired the commission’s executive committee on Christmas Eve. Kiviet will run the commission until February 1, when an interim commission will […]

MALAWI’S former works and supplies minister, Abdul Pillane, was arrested on Tuesday night on charges of corruption, an official of the country’s Anti-Corruption Bureau said on Wednesday. Pillane is expected to be brought before a lower court in the administrative capital Lilongwe on Wednesday. The official said Pillane, the first Malawian minister to be charged […]

GERMAN soccer legend Franz Beckenbauer hinted on Tuesday that South Africa was still leading the race to stage the 2006 World Cup finals despite mounting opposition from England and Germany. “The next logical step, after Asia, is for the World Cup to go to Africa,” said Beckenbauer. “The question is, is Africa ready?” Beckenbauer, president […]

FORMER Japanese premier Ryutaro Hashimoto flew into Johannesburg on Wednesday at the start of a four-day visit that will focus on establishing a partnership between his country and South Africa. Hashimoto, who became a senior foreign adviser to Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi after resigning in July, arrived in the country from Kenya where he was […]