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 […]
Howard Barrell and Jaspreet Kindra The HIV/Aids epidemic has taken on “shattering dimensions” and now accounts for one-in-four of all deaths, according to the Medical Research Council’s (MRC) report into the virus that has been suppressed by the government. The report, in the opinion of many the most authoritative of its kind into the effects […]
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 […]
analysis Khulekani Mathe Who sets the agenda for Adult Basic Education and Training (Abet) in South Africa? Before 1994 the agenda was set in Pretoria by the National Party government. Underpinned by a theory of uneven development based on racial discrimination, apartheid produced an education system that relegated black people to the bottom of the […]