WEDNESDAY, 6.00PM: ETHIOPIAN troops, tanks and heavy artillery crossed the border into Eritrea at dawn on Wednesday morning, the Eritrean foreign ministry said on Wednesday. The invasion, which has not been confirmed by independent sources, is an escalation of a tense border stand-off that has seen at least 100 people killed or wounded since Sunday. […]
TUESDAY 11.00AM: THERE are still a large number of troops belonging to the Angolan rebel movement Unita in several provinces, in spite of its claims to have demilitarised its forces, according to a United Nations official. Quoting a report by the commander of UN forces overseeing the peace process, UN representative for Angola Alouine Blondin […]
MONDAY, 4.00PM: IN an unexpected turn in the Lusaka High Court on Monday, the state dropped all charges against former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda, after which Judge Japhta Banda declared Kaunda a free man. “It’s great, it’s great,” declared Zambia’s 74-year-old founding father as hundreds of his supporters broke through a police cordon to celebrate […]
MONDAY 6.00PM: FORMER Zimbabwean president Canaan Banana has denied allegations by three policemen, two air force officers, two secret service agents, a cook, a jobseeker and a hitchhiker that he either forced or attempted to force them to have sex with him. Banana, 62, a former Methodist minister, was appearing in the Harare High Court […]
Mail & Guardian reporter South Africa’s financial markets took a drubbing this week as the rand fell to an all-time low and the Reserve Bank raised its key lending rate by more than two percentage points to 18%. The rand dropped to R5,16 against the dollar on Monday after rumours in London and New York […]
Mail & Guardian Reporter Radio’s Oscars, the annual Sony awards, shone on South Africa at this year’s glam function at Grosvenor House in London’s Park Lane. A documentary presented by Mail & Guardian correspondent Eddie Koch and produced by Johannesburg-based educational broadcasters Ulwazi won a bronze. The Last Voice – the compelling story of Kalahari […]
Stephen Bierley questions the sincerity of two potential tennis champions May in Paris and the great names are lined up for the French Open: Chiroubles, Fleurie, Morgon, Moulin-a- Vent. And then there are the tennis players. The intense heat of Melbourne, the mayhem of Flushing Meadow and the unremitting pressure of Wimbledon seem a world […]
Charl Blignaut investigates the fives rules for how to become a South African pop icon. (Don’t be scared to perform from the back of a truck) In 1985, six months after Lucky Dube’s fourth mbaqanga album had turned to gold – sales in excess of 25 000 units – the recording studio was again booked […]
Andrew Muchineripi Soccer When the World Cup draw was made in chilly Marseille last December, France and Denmark expressed happiness bordering on arrogance after being placed in the same group as minnows Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Recent events suggest it may not be quite so easy for the French and Danes with the Saudis […]
Krisjan Lemmer Squabbling continues unabated between the one-time “star” witness in the Winnie Madikizela-Mandela scandal, Katiza Cebekhulu, and his former mentor, Emma Nicholson, now dignified as Baroness Nicholson Of Winterbum (or something like that). Writing to The Guardian newspaper in Britain, Katiza complains that the dame continues to cling to the copyright to his own […]