AUTHORITIES of Lome University have hiked entrance fees almost ten-fold for the 2001-2002 academic year, an official in the Togolese capital of Lome said on Monday. He said the annual fees had been raised from 5 270 CFA francs (seven dollars), set in 1970, to 50 000 CFA francs ($69). There was no immediate reaction […]

SEVEN people, including tourists from the French island of Reunion, were killed on Monday when the light aircraft they were flying in crashed near the airport of Madagascar’s capital, pilots said. The Navajo PA 31 plane was approaching Antananarivo when the pilot reported problems first in one engine, then in the second, and subsequently crashed […]

SOUTH African Airways (SAA) will resume scheduled flights between Johannesburg, Lagos and New York on Wednesday, the airline announced on Tuesday. This is because “the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos now meets (US) Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) security requirements,” it said in a statement. The statement said that SAA flights from Johannesburg to Atlanta, Georgia, […]

THE IMF executive board on Thursday gave preliminary approval to a three-year credit worth $169-million for Sierra Leone to help the conflict-riven West African nation fight poverty. Final approval for the credit, called a poverty reduction and growth facility, will come with action by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund’s sister institution. The bank’s […]

Manila | Tuesday THE Philippine government will obtain a court order to freeze the assets of the Muslim Abu Sayaf kidnap-for-ransom group as ordered by US President George Bush, officials said on Tuesday. “The freeze of assets must go through court process,” President Gloria Arroyo’s representative Rigoberto Tiglao said. Bush issued an executive order on […]

SEGUN ARIBIKE, Nigeria | Tuesday A MIDDLE-aged Nigerian man is expected to be stoned to death next month after confessing to sodomising a seven-year-old boy. Attahiru Umaru’s death sentence is the first in Nigeria by a Islamic Sharia Court since a religious justice system was implemented in 10 northern Nigerian states last year. Umaru told […]

NIGERIAN authorities on Monday charged a Filipino man and his alleged Nigerian accomplice with illegally importing cocaine in the country’s biggest-ever drugs bust. Angelito Marinay was charged along with a Nigerian, Moshood Olatunji, after a haul of 60 kilogrammes of cocaine worth nine million dollars were found on a ship at Lagos main port in […]

US President George W Bush on Monday extended for another year sanctions imposed against rebels of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita). The White House said the president had concluded the rebel group continued to threaten the peace process in Angola. The 1993 sanctions banned arms and oil sales to Unita […]

ZAMBIAN President Frederick Chiluba has divorced from his wife of 33 years, Vera. The couple had been separated for more than a year before Chiluba (58) filed for divorce before a local court in Copperbelt province. Vera Chiluba told a conference of women in politics Monday that the divorce was a very sad development for […]

Johannesburg | Monday DEMOCRATIC Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Monday that he has lodged a formal request with the Medical Research Council to secure its report on Aids-related deaths. “I have also requested the findings of a study on the economic impact of HIV/Aids from the Department of Finance,” Leon said in a prepared […]