KHADIJA MAGARDIE, Johannesburg | Friday IN the wake of the September 11 terror attacks on the United States, speculation has mounted that the government is under pressure to show its commitment to ending global terrorism by pushing through draft legislation so dogged by controversy that it received mention in Amnesty International’s 2001 human rights report. […]

FIVE people were wounded, two of them needing hospital treatment, when a pet hyena broke loose in a northeast Nigerian city. The hyena, used for entertaining crowds by its owner Ismaila Ibrahim, broke its chain and attacked passers-by in the Gomari district of Maiduguri, capital of Borno State, a report by state-run Borno Radio said. […]

There have been 105 739 cases if cholera reported in KwaZulu-Natal since August 2000, the province’s health department reported this week. The fatality rate is 0.215% and 228 have died. Cholera is a bacterial infection, which is contracted by drinking contaminated water or by eating food which has been in contact with contaminated water, flies […]

AUTHORITIES in war-ravaged Burundi said on Thursday they were still holding 96 soldiers and seven civilians, suspected of playing a part in a failed coup on July 23. Twenty of those held on remand are officers, according to chief state prosecutor Gerard Ngendabanka. Loyalist troops arrested more than 500 soldiers who tried to overthrow the […]

Thabo Mohlala Residents in Zandspruit, an informal settlement in Honeydew north of Johannesburg, are living in fear after marauding hoodlums went on the rampage and assaulted “foreigners”. According to residents the attack followed a brawl at a shebeen where a Xhosa-speaking man was allegedly shot by a man of Zimbabwean origin. Other Xhosa-speaking residents then […]

Tony Twine A well-known local economist recently reminded an audience of economists and media writers that participants in currency markets are myopic and have no memory whatsoever. It was less a sideswipe at traders than a reminder that in the heat of trading room battles, the luxury of a cool, calm and holistically collected economic […]

A second Look Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela There are many troubling questions raised by Sipho Seepe’s article (“Where are the so-called leaders?” September 21 to 27), not least the question of the extent to which fear has paralysed those in leadership and silenced them from speaking out against some of the indefensible statements made from the president’s […]

Washington | Wednesday A PLAN for Sudan to arrest Osama bin Laden in 1996 fell through when the United States found it unable to put him on trial and failed to convince Saudi Arabia to take him, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday. The newspaper said the US administration of then-president Bill Clinton had secretly […]

Gregory Mthembu-Salter South African National Defence Force (SANDF) troops may be heading for Burundi, despite the absence of a ceasefire in the long-running and bloody civil war. The SANDF troops are likely to form part of a special protection unit (SPU) for Hutu politicians returning from exile to join a new transitional government, scheduled to […]

The world’s media is battling for ringside seats as war looms in Afghanistan. Stefaans Brmmer reports from Dushanbe, Tajikistan The uniform in Hotel Tajikistan is the khaki camera jacket, as worn by gung-ho journalists worldwide. Its proliferation of pockets conveniently stores notebooks, pens and lenses, but also the wads of cash and official passes that […]