Staff Reporter
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/ 3 June 1998

Prime Evil fingers PW

WEDNESDAY, 2.15PM: APARTHEID’s chief assassin Eugene de Kock, known by his colleagues as “Prime Evil”, claimed on Wednesday that former president PW Botha ordered the 1987 bomb attack on Cosatu House, headquarters of the country’s largest trade union federation. Testifying at Botha’s trial for ignoring a Truth and Reconciliation Commission subpoena, De Kock told the […]

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/ 2 June 1998

Unita still has an army

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 […]

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/ 1 June 1998

Banana denies sex charges

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 […]

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/ 1 June 1998

Kenneth Kaunda freed

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 […]

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/ 29 May 1998

Singing it all back home

Phillip Kakaza A melancholic nostalgia sweeps through Woza! – the Civic Theatre’s celebration of 40 years of South African musicals – as the soulful voices of Wendy Mseleku and Sibongile Mngoma and the tap-dancing feet of Somizi Mhlongo tour memory lane. King Kong’s blues number Back of the Moon and Ipi Ntombi’s Mama Thembu’s Wedding […]

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/ 29 May 1998

Patient’s penis skinned in muti murder

Mzilikazi wa Afrika A Northern Province tuberculosis patient who disappeared from his hospital bed was found dead near the doctors’ quarters on Sunday morning, with his scrotum removed and his penis skinned. Police suspect that someone working at the Mokopane hospital, near Potgietersrus, lured Malesela Joseph Tshege (52) out of the TB ward in the […]

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/ 29 May 1998

Don’t count ’em before they hatch

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 […]

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/ 29 May 1998

The dame who bags the royalties

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 […]

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/ 29 May 1998

Lesotho on edge as poll is disputed

Lesotho’s elections have been declared fair, but a host of inconsistencies points towards vote rigging, writes William Boot in Maseru The day before Lesotho’s general elections last Saturday, Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) leader Pakaditha Mosisili stuck his neck out to predict: “We will win by a landslide.” He said this at a time when […]

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/ 29 May 1998

Nobody’s darling

Alice Walker is a feminist icon and also a defiant individualist. Libby Brooks meets a woman at ease with herself, if not the world Alice Walker pads around her hotel suite like a fabulous cat. Just in from California and weary, she is not particularly friendly, but I would still like to touch her. The […]