OLGA NEDBAYEVA , Moscow | Friday HEAVILY laden down with olive oil, chocolate, coconut and cereals — and a smuggled supply of vodka — South Africa’s Mike Horn, formerly a jungle explorer, is preparing to circumnavigate the world around the North Pole. Horn begins his “Arktos” expedition on February 27 on an ice floe in […]

Maputo | Tuesday THE European Union is providing Mozambique with 11 million euros (about 12 million dollars) to boost cash crops, including cotton and cashews, a senior government official said on Monday. “The whole programme is aimed at reducing the incidence of poverty and creating food security in the rural areas,” said agriculture and rural […]

Niki Moore The Termination of Pregnancy Act will shortly be tested in the Mtuba-tuba Magistrate’s Court when a 19-year-old unmarried woman will be charged with performing an abortion while not being a medical practitioner. The woman, who cannot be named, aborted her own foetus and buried the body in a forestry plantation on the outskirts […]

Paul Olivier The 13 Gana and Gwi Bushmen who are appearing in the magistrate’s court in Lethlakane, Botswana, on charges of illegal hunting, say they were tortured by wildlife officials who were trying to drive them off their ancestral land. The hunters, who went on trial on Monday, are all from the Central Kalahari Game […]

The proposal to merge higher education institutions is problematic for many reasons: it is unlikely to make the higher education sector more cost-effective and efficient, it is likely to create a host of new problems and it will diminish the variety of higher-education institutions when the opposite is needed. If we are to cater for […]

Duncan Mackay The judge’s decision is final … unless NBC decides otherwise. That is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to award a second gold medal for the pairs figure skating after a five-day campaign driven almost exclusively by the North American media. In awarding […]

Kevin Scott Just a few months after jumping into bed with the African National Congress, new Western Cape Premier Peter Marais has entangled himself in controversy by launching an attack on gays. Marais, well known for his hard-line anti-abortion and pro-death penalty views, was quoted in the March edition of the Afrikaans magazine Insig as […]

A simple, cost-effective operation has brought new life to those suffering from cataract blindness Meagan Shaw Maseabi Mokhatlane, 68, had a death sentence hanging over her. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), people in developing countries usually die within four years of losing their sight and she had been cataract blind since last September. […]

Marianne Merten Welile Nhlapo, former foreign affairs deputy director general responsible for Africa, has been named to head the new presidential support unit set up in the intelligence ministry to provide logistical backing to the presidency and former president Nelson Mandela. Although the unit was established in November last year, the four-strong team was formally […]

Thabo Mohlala Die Fledermaus, the much-publicised comic operetta that received mixed reviews during its Christmas run at the Civic Theatre in Johannesburg, has run into more bad notices these from cast members who say they have still not been paid. At the centre of the row is Opera Africa, the company that staged the show. […]