THE candidate for Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party won a by-election to fill the seat left vacant after the death of war veterans leader Chenjerai Hunzvi. Bernard Makokove of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) defeated the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change’s (MDC) Oswald Ndanga by 15 570 votes to 5 207, state television […]

THE national secretary of Zambia’s Ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), Michael Sata, resigned from the party on Monday, four days after he quit his top ministerial position. “He tendered his resignation from the party this afternoon,” said his representative Eddie Lifwekelo. According to Lifwekelo, Sata resigned from the party in protest against the manner […]

THE permanent secretary for mines and energy, Retired Colonel Christian Katsande, has been banned from attending a summit in the United States – becoming the first victim of travel restrictions being implemented by the United States government against President Robert Mugabe and his officials. The US has also deferred a training programme that had been […]

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 […]