SAKHILE MOKOENA, Hazyview | Tuesday IN a sweltering shed in the sub-tropical hills of Mpumalanga’s Lowveld, a farmer called Daan Jacobs and 12 workers sweat over avocados. They are turning the creamy fruit into an oil that is used in beauty products for women in the United States and Japan. “Our products are in high […]

HOT on the heels of orchestrating a watered-down resolution on Zimbabwe at last week’s final OAU summit, South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Thursday he agreed with concerns that unrest in Zimbabwe had the potential to provoke unrest elsewhere in southern Africa if it were not brought under control. Speaking during a two-day visit […]

PRESIDENT Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia announced on Sunday the lifting of a decree preventing some politicians from standing for election, news organizations reported. “Former politicians are now free to come back and form parties. The decree that made people seek political asylum abroad is now history,” PANA reported Jammeh as saying at a ceremony […]

Mbabane | Tuesday THE United States has warned Swaziland that it stands to lose world markets and membership in world bodies should the country fail to revoke a controversial decree, it was reported on Monday. In a letter to the Swaziland government, a senior US official voiced serious concerns about the decree, which gives King […]

SIX people were arrested in Los Angeles after an international investigation into an alleged multi-million dollar orchid and cycad smuggling operation, the Australian government said on Tuesday. Environment Minister Robert Hill said border and wildlife agencies from several countries joined forces in the endangered plant investigation, which spanned the United States, Australia, South Africa and […]

AN unlucky South African crook was arrested after he broke into a Boksburg library where the local policeman was discussing crime statistics, a newspaper said on Tuesday. The Citizen newspaper said Superintendent Christo Heunis was addressing business people last Tuesday when the building’s alarm went off. ”It was quite ironic. I was actually presenting crime […]

Johannesburg | Tuesday SOUTH Africa’s Department of Minerals and Energy confirmed on Tuesday that the retail price of petrol would be cut by 19 cents from August 1 in line with falling international crude oil prices. Wholesale paraffin prices would fall by two cents a litre and diesel by four cents a litre, said departmental […]

A SOUTH African government minister is making a secret herbal medicine out of peach leaves to help treat Aids, the Sunday Times reported. It said the medicine was mixed and brewed in a hut on Public Works Minister Stella Sigcau’s property in the poor Eastern Cape province and had already been dispensed to at least […]