JIM WOLF, Washington | Wednesday A FLAW in software that helps drive the Internet could let hackers disrupt Web operations worldwide unless corrected quickly, a US Defence Department-funded research centre said this week. Electronic intruders seizing on the newly discovered vulnerability could gain control of domain name servers (DNS), which translate easy-to-remember names – such […]

THE United Nations has appealed for $353m to provide food and other relief supplies to 13 million drought victims in five countries in the Horn of Africa. A UN official said famine had been avoided last year in the region, which has a chronic food shortage after three consecutive years of poor rains. But fresh […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Wednesday ZIMBABWES Supreme Court has delivered a stinging rebuke to President Robert Mugabe, overturning a presidential decree which sought to ban challenges against results of last year’s parliamentary election, even where corrupt or illegal practices were committed. Ruling in favour of an appeal by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change […]

FEARS are mounting for the fate of some 200 Tanzanians, many of them wounded, who fled deadly political violence on Pemba island by boat, amid reports that a police helicopter fired on the vessels and dropped grenades on them. An opposition Member of Parliament in Pemba – part of Tanzania’s offshore state of Zanzibar – […]

MORE than 300 delegates from 51 countries, including nine in Africa, have gathered at the University of Cape Town to attend the 17th International Seaweed Symposium being hosted by the university and the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. The theme of the conference is “Seaweed: Science and Technology for Sustainable Industry”. The world seaweed […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday THE stench of corruption surrounding the governments R43bn arms deal has deepened with the axing of a leading African National Congress (ANC) MP from a key party post after he voiced concern about alleged kickbacks for top ANC officials and insisted on a probe. Andrew Feinstein, who was vociferous […]

UGANDA’S former state telecommunications monopoly, now mostly owned by Germany’s Datecon, has launched the country’s third mobile phone network. UTL (Uganda Telecom Limited) Telecel’s network will initially cover Kampala and Entebbe, and plans to cover the entire country by the end of the year using facilities supplied by the French company Alcatel. Two mobile networks […]

THE government of Niger has banned hunting throughout the country in a bid to resuscitate wildlife populations. Environment Minister Issoufou Assoumane said the ban was necessary to “allow the reconstitution of the fauna.” In the past decade, the desert zones in northern Niger have become hunting playgrounds for Persian Gulf princes, who arrive for expeditions […]