Johannesburg | Monday TWO of South Africa’s largest unions on Monday said some 65_000 members are two go on strike Wednesday and Thursday at mining companies and the country’s giant steel manufacturer. National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) spokesman Moferefere Lekorotsoana said the union had issued a 48-hour notice of mass action at the Goldfields, Harmony […]

HUNDREDS of people protested angrily outside a court here Monday after the judge hearing a suit against US drugs company Pfizer failed to turn up and case had to be adjourned. A high court in Kano, northern Nigeria, in March gave leave to three Nigerian families to sue Pfizer in a class action over tests […]

NIGERIA’S President Olusegun Obasanjo has mediated in a spat between the country’s two main bourses over which has the right to call itself the country’s leading exchange. Officials of Nigeria’s first bourse, established in Lagos in 1961, were suspended in May by the regulatory agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), over their refusal to […]

ANOTHER endangered mountain gorilla died in a crossfire in the forested Virunga volcanoes which straddle the borders of Uganda, Rwanda and eastern DRC, a statement from the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) said. AWF quoted the director of the International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP), Annette Lanjouw, as saying that Rugendo [the dead gorilla], was shot dead […]

A YOUNG male lion that escaped from the Kruger National Park two weeks ago is still on the prowl in forests surrounding the small holiday town of White River in Mpumalanga. Mpumalanga Parks Board spokesman Gary Sutter said on Monday the renegade lion had dodged baited traps and ranger patrols but was believed to still […]

ALGERIANS who served with the French army during the Algerian civil war are planning to charge France with crimes against humanity for allegedly abandoning them after Algerian independence, their lawyer said on Monday. The ex-soldiers will file a suit before French courts at the end of next month, said Philippe Reulet, representing the National Liaison […]

Pretoria | Tuesday WOUTER BASSON, the mastermind behind apartheid South Africa’s chemical warfare programme, on Monday denied having supplied potions to kill liberation fighters from the South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo). Basson (51) was contradicting testimony by a former fellow soldier in the Pretoria High Court that Basson had given him deadly muscle relaxants […]

STEVEN SWINDELLS, Johannesburg | Tuesday CATHOLIC bishops from southern Africa on Monday condemned the use of condoms to fight the Aids pandemic gripping the continent, saying it was immoral and dangerous. The Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference wrapped up a seven-day meeting by denouncing the use of condoms, which they said destroyed moral fibre and […]

ALLAN SECOMBE, Johannesburg | Tuesday SOUTH AFRICA’S number two bullion producer Gold Fields Ltd said on Monday it had made a revised wage offer to avert Wednesday’s strike, and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said it would weigh it up. ”We have given the NUM a revised offer and they will take it back […]

Johannesburg | Tuesday TELECOMS regulator Icasa (Independent Communications Authority of South Africa) said on Monday it would invoke special legislation to ensure that state-owned telecoms operator Telkom’s long-awaited IPO (initial public share offering) goes ahead in November. The regulator issued new policy directives last Thursday that are key to the listing of about 20% of […]