Kampala | Sunday MORE than 240 people have been killed in a violent witch hunt around the town of Aru in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during the past two weeks, the Ugandan military said on Saturday. The lynchings appear to have started when a rumour spread in the border area that witches possessed […]

Hansie Cronje’s lawyers went on the offensive on Saturday in search of the indemnity from criminal prosecution the former South African captain is seeking from the South African government. Cronje, banned from cricket for life after becoming involved in a betting scandal, stands to win the indemnity if the government decides he has told the […]

Johannesburg | Monday INTERNATIONAL rating agency Standard & Poor’s said on Monday it was unlikely to upgrade South Africa’s credit rating in the absence of improved economic growth and labour relations. Standard & Poor assigned South Africa a stable outlook rating last year, while Moody’s placed the country on positive ratings watch. Finance Minister Trevor […]

Pilanesberg | Sunday SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki, several ministers and some 60 journalists on Saturday ended an extraordinary meeting aimed at mending the troubled relationship between his government and the press, a report said. Mbeki closed the two-day meeting in Pilanesberg northwest of Johannesburg with an admission that government was partly to blame for […]

Cape Town | Saturday RESEARCHERS in South Africa and Britain have isolated the gene that causes retinitis pigmentosa, a leading cause of inherited blindness affecting one million people worldwide, a report said on Friday. Two scientists from the University of Cape Town and one from Britain have identified the culprit gene as RP13, which carries […]

EMSIE FERREIRA, Cape Town | Saturday TEN years ago the foundation stones of apartheid fell when the laws that divided people into black and white and forced them to live apart were wiped from South Africa’s statute books. The Population Registration Act of 1950, which required that everybody be classified at birth as belonging to […]

GRIFFIN SHEA, Harare ZIMBABWE’S powerful trade unions on Saturday declared a two-day national stayaway for next week, despite warnings from government that the protest over fuel prices was illegal. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) decided after a special meeting Saturday “to carry out a two-day mass national protest on Tuesday July 3 and […]

Jay Parini On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks (Hutchinson) Sebastian Faulks has become an international sensation, attracting countless readers to his entertaining French trio, The Girl at the Lion d’Or, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray. Now, with a surprising shift of scene, comes On Green Dolphin Street. Rather as you do with a decent television […]

Facing the challenges of Aids may be too much for the medical profession, writes a children’s doctor at a large hospital I am an ordinary South African doctor working with sick children in a South African hospital. My colleagues the doctors and nurses and many other professional people are also ordinary. We do our daily […]

James Campbell Glue by Irvine Welsh (Jonathan Cape) Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting was about a bunch of daft lads (or sub-psychopaths) whose violence and amorality were supposedly explained by their origins in soulless Edinburgh housing schemes. They devoured drink, drugs and wee lassies by the ton. The one thing that inspired them was tribal loyalty: they […]