NIGERIAN army units on Saturday raided two villages and killed at least three people in the area where a massacre was committed late last month, a local reporter said. Uja Emmanuel, a reporter for the newspaper The Anchor, said army units had raided the villages of Abako and Moor on the border of Benue and […]

Abuja | Wednesday NIGERIAN President Olusegun Obasanjo is to present on Wednesday his 2002 budget proposals to parliament, unveiling scaled back spending plans in the wake of recent falls in the price of oil. Obasanjo will announce spending plans for the next calendar year of 844-billion naira ($7,6-billion), sharply lower than the combined total of […]

Cape Town | Wednesday WESTERN Cape premier Gerald Morkel is expected to seek an interdict from the Cape High Court on Wednesday to block the New National Party’s bid to split from the Democratic Alliance. His urgent application is expected to be heard only hours ahead of a meeting of the NNP federal council in […]

A JUSTICE and peace commission formed by Malawi’s Roman Catholic church on Monday protested at what it described as an increase in “state-sponsored violence” aimed at silencing critics of the government. The condemnation came in the wake of church claims that activists of the ruling United Democratic Front, who call themselves “young democrats”, last month […]

Bujumbura | Wednesday HUTU rebels in Burundi on Tuesday kidnapped scores of school children and their teachers, a day after 36 people were killed in rebel attacks and less than a week after the installation of a new power-sharing government, a local government official said. The kidnapping took place early in the morning in Buruhukiro […]

Accra | Wednesday GHANA’S Information Minister Jake Obetsebi-Lamppey said this week that six senior policemen would be charged with manslaughter over the country’s worst football tragedy which claimed 126 lives. Obetsebi-Lamppey told a news conference here that the responsibility of the May 9 disaster at Accra Sports Stadium lay “squarely” with the police. The tragedy […]

JAMES ASTILL, Nairobi | Thursday KENYAN victims of the American embassy bombing in Nairobi three years ago expressed anger at their failure to win compensation yesterday, and dismay at the large sums being promised to victims of the September 11 attacks. The disparity could only be explained if Americans were considered to be “superior victims”, […]

A 17-YEAR-old youth was arrested on Monday in connection with the rape of a four-year-old neighbour in Wepener near the Lesotho border in the southern Free State, Bloemfontein police reported on Wednesday. Captain Ernest Mayiki said the youth was arrested after the mother discovered her child bloodied and traumatised. ”On Tuesday, police discovered that the […]

Washington | Thursday THE US-led air campaign in Afghanistan entered a 26th day on Thursday with Washington warning the Taliban regime to brace for more carpet-bombing of their positions across the country. At least one B-52 bomber was spotted dropping large numbers of unguided bombs over Taliban frontlines north of Kabul on Wednesday and a […]

THE Family and Marriage Society of South Africa (Famsa) on Wednesday said it was deeply concerned about the threat posed to family life in the country resulting from the atrocities of child and women abuse. Famsa national director Annette van Rensburg said the incident in which a nine-month-old baby was gang-raped was one of many […]