TANZANIA has joined Inmarsat, the satellite telecommunications group, becoming its 85th member, the company said on Friday. Tanzania is the 14th African country to join the group. Tanzania’s joining Inmarsat ”illustrates the persistent need for mobile communications by satellite, and for computers, which are essential for growth and development in this region,” said Shola Taylor, […]

THE United States embassy building in central Nairobi, which was the scene of the August 7 1998 bomb blast in which over 250 people including 11 Americans died, will be demolished ”n the near future”. US ambassador to Kenya Prudence Bushnell was on quoted Sunday by the Nairobi-based Sunday Standard as confirming that the building […]

THE Prime Minister of Burkina Faso, Kadre Desire Ouedraogo, has resigned along with his government following President Blaise Compaore’s inauguration for a new seven-year term. Compaore, who was re-elected on November 15, approved the resignation of the government late on Friday in the capital Ouagadougou. Compaore is expected within the next few days to appoint […]

EGYPTIAN women will soon be able to buy a divorce even if their husband objects, under a draft law outlined by the government Al-Ahram newspaper on Thursday. Justice Minister Faruq Seif an-Nasr said that a new law on personal status is being drawn up to simplify legal procedures and it will go before Parliament shortly. […]

A BRANCH of American franchise Kentucky Fried Chicken in Athlone on the Cape Flats was petrol bombed in the early hours of Friday. Western Cape police said a number of petrol bombs were thrown through the windows of the take-away in Klipfontein road at about 2am, causing damage estimated at R50000. The attack followed an […]

FRANSCOIS-XAVIER HARISPE, Abidjan | Friday 9.00pm. THE fragile one-day-old ceasefire in the Sierra Leone capital Freetown crumbled on Friday as rebel insurgents intensified their attacks against positions held by the pro-government Nigerian-led intervention force, Ecomog. Information was scarce on what areas of Freetown are in rebel or Ecomog control, as most phone lines are down […]

AFRICAN National Congress members disgruntled with Mpumalanga Premier Mathews Phosa’s leadership made personal submissions to the party’s president,Thabo Mbeki, during his low-key three-day visit to the province earlier this week. The series of meetings, initially planned as a review of the ANC’s organisational status, reportedly included a series of one-on-one meetings between Mbeki and unhappy […]

IT is illegal for any airline operating from Zimbabwe to quote air fares in United States dollars or any other foreign currency, Minister of Industry and Commerce Nathan Shamuyarira said on Friday. The government’s statement is in response to the Board of Airline Representatives’ Wednesday decision to quote air fares on domestic, regional and international […]

Point for point, the two measure up, but the raw statistics are deceptive. What should be clear is that we are not really comparing like with like. Britannica is a text-based leviathan, a mass of information, some of it rather long in the tooth, sometimes too detailed, but often impressive in its scope, though making […]

Mail &Guardian reporter The National Party has lost its appeal against a decision by the press ombudsman that the Mail & Guardian was justified in publishing details of a police investigation into its leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk. The article published last year (April 30 to May 7)under the headline “NP leader in bizarre sex probe” […]