GUERRILLAS in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have freed a Swedish hostage after 45 days of captivity in exchange for a second-hand Volvo truck, the Swedish television news programme Rapport said on Saturday. The evening newspaper Expressen said Bjoern Rugsten, 33, was freed by the Mai Mai group thanks to the […]
London | Tuesday ZIMBABWES main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai urged Britain not to turn its back on its troubled former colony during a meeting with new Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Monday. Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), met Straw at the Foreign Office for the first time since Straw replaced Robin […]
KENYAS President Daniel arap Moi has called for the death penalty for those who deliberately infected their sexual partners with the HIV virus, which can lead to Aids, and life imprisonment for rapists. “The time has come for those who deliberately infect others to die and those who rape to be jailed for life,” Moi […]
THE Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) on Sunday said it had agreed to extend a R320-million ($40-million) loan to expand the Mozal aluminium smelter in Mozambique. The completion of the second stage of the smelter will double its output to 506_000 tonnes of aluminium per year, and will cost one billion dollars, the bank […]
It took a stroke of political genius by Nelson Mandela to tell the world in general and Afrikaners in particular that Ingrid Jonker ”was both a poet and a South African. She was both an Afrikaner and an African. She was both an artist and a human being.”
STATE-run radio Nigeria, which boasts being the largest radio network in Africa, is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The radio, established in 1951, is the oldest in Nigeria and has a reputation for employing and training most of the country’s known broadcasters. The radio gave birth in 1962 to the Voice of Nigeria, the international service, […]
THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Sunday scolded the Congo-Brazzaville government for excessive spending, massive customs fraud and the slow pace of privatisation, saying the country could not yet qualify for debt relief. An IMF delegation visiting oil-rich Congo said money doled out to the country’s bloated civil service would make it difficult to meet […]
THE Kalashnikov rifle is one of the past century’s greatest inventions, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi said as he welcomed Mikhail Kalashnikov to Libya, sources quoted by Interfax news agency said. “The Kalashnikov assault rifle is one of the most important inventions of the 20th century and will long remain so for most countries in the […]
HEAVY flooding on Sunday left about 200 families homeless in Nigeria’s central Benue State, official radio Nigeria reported. The affected residents of Ogbadigbo municipality were taking refuge in churches and mosques in the area, the radio said. The rains lasted for about two hours, it said. – AFP
Kampala | Sunday MORE than 240 people have been killed in a violent witch hunt around the town of Aru in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during the past two weeks, the Ugandan military said on Saturday. The lynchings appear to have started when a rumour spread in the border area that witches possessed […]