Johannesburg | Thursday THE African National Congress on Wednesday called a Newsweek article, in which President Thabo Mbeki was criticised, a ”badly written movie script”. ANC representative Smuts Ngonyama said the article written by Tom Masland was the ”latest episode of an ongoing crusade that aims to bludgeon President Mbeki’s image at home and abroad”. […]

BEN MACLENNAN, Cape Town | Thursday A REPORT commissioned by the government and released on Wednesday says there are no good reasons to delay the expansion of programmes for preventing mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV. It has also called for the fast-tracking in the interim of nevirapine for women who already know they have the […]

Johannesburg | Wednesday South Africa’s economy grew 2.2 percent last year, a decline of 1,2% from performance in 2000 but a fair outcome given the global economic slowdown, Statistics South Africa (SSA) said on Wednesday. ”We showed better growth than many emerging economies and our economic fundamentals are right,” said Mike Manamela, SSA’s deputy director […]

Harare | Thursday ZIMBABWE’S High Court has made a ruling that will allow thousands of dual citizens mainly minority whites to vote in upcoming crunch presidential election, The Financial Gazette reported on Thursday. In what has been seen as a victory for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which enjoys strong backing from whites […]

Geneva | Wednesday THE UN refugee agency said on Tuesday that it had found evidence of “extensive” sexual exploitation of refugee children in West Africa, allegedly by local aid workers. A team commissioned by the UNHCR and Save the Children UK reported that much of the abuse had allegedly been carried out by workers locally […]

Washington | Wednesday THE World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have agreed to support a comprehensive 3.7-billion-dollar debt reduction package for the West African nation of Ghana, the bank announced on Tuesday. Under the agreement, $781-million in debt relief will be delivered to Ghana over a 20-year period and will cover on average 67% […]

KING Letsie III of Lesotho on Monday dissolved parliament in preparation for a general election to be held in May in the tiny southern African kingdom. The move has silenced detractors who claimed that the government was delaying the next elections. Now that parliament has been dissolved, polls to elect members of the lower house […]

Vienna | Wednesday THE spread of HIV and Aids looks likely to accelerate further in parts of Africa with the spread of injected heroin use, especially among younger people, a UN drugs board warned on Wednesday. A growing number of young men and women across Africa are starting to abuse drugs at ever younger ages, […]