ZAMBIAN former deputy finance minister Newton N’guni said on Thursday that he has been arrested and charged with defaming President Frederick Chiluba. “They summoned me to the police sometime in the afternoon, where they recorded a ‘warn and caution’ statement from me. They then charged me with defaming Chiluba,” N’guni said. His arrest came barely […]

ZAMBIA’S only electricity company, Zesco, is owed about $65-million from consumers who have stopped paying their bills to protest high power tariffs, the company’s managing director said on Wednesday. Although no one has organized a formal boycott, the movement has built up steam through widespread public discontent. Zesco will now offer a 40% discount to […]

ZIMBABWE will push for an apology and compensation for the dispossession of its land by its former colonial master, Britain, at the upcoming United Nations World Racism Conference, the justice minister said on Wednesday. At the conference in South Africa later this month, Zimbabwe will insist on an “express apology by former colonial masters” and […]

MARIANNE MERTEN, Cape Town | Friday THE Cape High Court this week delivered one of South Africa’s first rulings on ethical and accountable conduct by state officials when it slammed as unconstitutional the actions by two state advocates in prosecuting the 1996 murder of Cape gang boss Rashaad Staggie. Cape Deputy Judge President Jeanette Traverso […]

KHADIJA MAGARDIE, Johannesburg | Friday A RECENTLY released book on the Sharpeville massacre looks set to create waves in academic and political circles. The controversial findings in An Ordinary Atrocity, by University of the Witwatersrand academic Philip Frankel, include the claim that poor planning skills and “quixotic elements” within the ranks of the organisers, the […]

THE Mail & Guardian is one of only three national weekly newspapers to have posted significant year-on-year circulation increases in the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) certificate issued on August 2. The declining circulation figures for most urban daily and weekly newspapers reveal one thing: South Africans are reading less. Three print publications have […]

PROSTITUTION cannot be criminalised, but a landmark judgment in a South African court to take the profession one step closer to legalisation is unfortunate, the country’s churches said on Friday. Two South African High Court judges upheld an appeal by a self-confessed prostitute Thursday, a landmark ruling which will legalise prostitution if confirmed by the […]

HUMAN rights deteriorated in Namibia over the past year, the Namibian Society for Human Rights (NSHR) said in its annual report, released on Tuesday, noting slight improvements in two regions. “Widespread and systematic acts and/or statements manifesting or inciting racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance were monitored throughout the period under consideration,” it said. […]

STEFAANS BRMMER and MUNGO SOGGOT, Johannesburg | Friday TELKOM pressed criminal charges this week against a controversial security company accused of colluding with Bheki Langa, the former number three at the parastatal who resigned last month — on the same day the Mail & Guardian broke a story on his alleged collusion with Telkom contractors. […]

KENYAN police said on Friday they are following up clues in the murder of a member of parliament in Nairobi as it emerged that robbery was unlikely to have motivated the killing. Tony Ndilinge, MP for the ruling Kenya African National Union (Kanu) party representing Kilome constituency in the southern Makueni district, was killed on […]