THE government of Zimbabwe, where food shortages are looming, has granted a monopoly to allow a grain marketing parastatal to buy maize and wheat — the two main staple crops — from farmers. The Grain Marketing Board (GMB) becomes the sole and official buyer of grains from all farmers across the country, while millers will […]

THE United States has approved $10-million in financial assistance to help the Nigerian air force to develop its fleet, officials said on Tuesday. The military package, approved for fiscal 2001, is to purchase spare parts for the Nigerian air force’s grounded C-130 planes, the US Information Service (USIS) said. It said the money would also […]

A GROWING number of Swaziland schools are introducing compulsory pregnancy tests at the start of the year so that parents can hold their daughters back. The idea is that parents not waste money on school fees, uniforms and textbooks, only to have their daughters drop out later on. The kingdom’s Ministry of Education does not […]

THE Sudanese government has said it doubts foreign oil companies, notably the Canadian company Talisman, will pull-out from the Sudan under the threat of sanctions from the United States, Sudan’s foreign minister was quoted saying to local newspapers on Tuesday. “Numerous signals we have received confirmed that all oil companies, including Talisman, will continue operating […]

A South African High Court has ordered a man to pay his wife a million rand ($121 000) in damages for infecting her with HIV, it was reported on Sunday. The court ruling is the first in South Africa in which a married woman has claimed damages after her husband wilfully infected her with the […]

A DRAFT bill to divide up Nigeria’s inefficient state-run electricity company NEPA ahead of its planned privatisation is ready, officials said on Tuesday. The government last year announced plans to improve the performance of the widely criticised National Electric Power Authority and then break it up and sell it off over the next two years. […]

NIGERIA loses several thousand children to human trafficking a year, the Vanguard newspaper said on Sunday, quoting an International Labour Organisation (ILO) report. The paper quoted the ILO report as saying that in 1996 alone, over 4 000 children were trafficked from the southern and southeast parts of the country. It said the children were […]

THE newly formed opposition Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) has won a parliamentary by-election in Lusaka which was marred by violence. “The FDD candidate won in 32 polling centres out of 34,” said an election officer, describing it as a “landslide victory.” FDD secretary-general Edith Nawakwi said her party’s victory signified a major shift […]

A GRADE 9 pupil from Swakopmund is lucky to be alive after he was stabbed in the neck and chest by a classmate last week. Marshall Maasdorp (14) from Westside High School in Vineta was stabbed with a steak knife after an argument with another pupil. Maasdorp said initially he did not feel the stab […]