Neville Alexander a SECOND LOOK The report (The Star, January 14) that Sandringham High School decided because of financial constraints not to renew the school governing body post of its teacher for Zulu and that, instead, a government-financed Afrikaans post may be created, has again brought to the fore the language-education policy as one of […]

POLICE have arrested an adviser to Ivory Coast’s former prime minister Alassane Ouattara in connection with an attempted coup. Police and paramilitary gendarmes searched the house of Jean Jacques Bechio, a former minister under Ivory Coast’s founding president Felix Houphouet-Boigny, and accused him of harbouring people connected with a thwarted coup earlier this month. State […]

ZIMBABWEAN Vice-President Joseph Msika has criticised self-styled Zimbabwe independence war veterans who have stormed six local government offices in the last two weeks, driving out workers suspected of supporting the opposition. “Listen, you are losing direction. You are now closing government and council offices, beating up workers and chasing them away. You are getting lost, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Tripoli | Thursday LIBYA has rejected calls by the US and Britain to admit responsibility for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people, after Scottish judges in the Netherlands convicted a Libyan security official of murder and sentenced him to life in a Scottish prison for the bombing. “Libya, as a state, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Johannesburg | Thursday THE cholera epidemic gripping South Africa has killed three more people over the past 24 hours in KwaZulu-Natal, bringing the total number of deaths since August to 82. More than 1_000 new infections were reported on Monday this week, bringing the number of cases since the outbreak of the disease […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Thursday ADMINISTRATIVE slip-ups are costing the South African taxpayer tens of millions of rands in overpaid public service salaries, according to a report by Auditor General Shauket Fakie. More than R10.6m was paid out in the 1999/2000 financial year to 557 workers who had died, said the report, which was commissioned […]

CLAIRE KEETON, Johannesburg | Thursday THE single lightning bolt that killed 13 people in South Africa this week was one of the deadliest strikes ever in a country prone to electrical storms and where poor housing offers little protection. One family lost seven members when their thatch-roofed hut in a remote part of KwaZulu-Natal was […]

A SENEGALESE student has died after being shot in a clash between demonstrators and police near a university in Dakar. Several sources confirmed the student’s death without stating the cause, while university and government sources declined to comment. The students, who have been on strike for three weeks demanding lower food and lodging bills and […]

KENYAN tycoon Kamlesh Pattni has lost his bid to avoid being tried on charges related to the biggest – and most complex – financial scandal in Kenya’s history. Three judges in the constitutional court judges ruled that Pattni, a key player in the so-called Goldenberg Affair, must face trial on charges of defrauding the government […]