THE Nigerian government has told the agency running the country’s 16 airports to get rid of more than 50 planes abandoned years ago. The hulks of the planes have lain for years at airports around the country, and the aviation ministry has decided a clear-up is necessary. The agency is in the process of acquiring […]

UP to three quarters, or 150_000, of Namibia’s seal pups could starve this season if the weather continues to push the fish they eat away from the shore, a marine biologist warned. Trade winds from the southern Atlantic, which should cause an upwelling of a plankton-rich cold current along the coast, had weakened. The fish […]

IN an effort to prevent vagrants from defecating in the street, the Mbabane city council is considering sprinkling muti on human faeces that will cause the offender’s bottom to swell. Spokesman for Swaziland’s capital, Bongani Dlamini, said the council was at its wits end about the messy matter and also wanted to hire council police […]

THE World Health Organisation (WHO) says South Africa’s cholera epidemic, which has killed 66 people and infected another 20_000 since August, is a wake-up call to government to speed up development in rural areas. Cholera, which has hit the rural poor who depend on contaminated rivers for their drinking water, has swept across six southern […]

A PASSENGER on a South African Airways (SAA) flight from London to Johannesburg was arrested after he drunkenly harassed a woman and punched a crew member, police and airline sources said on Sunday. The passenger from Durban, whose name was not disclosed, was in custody late Sunday at Kempton Park. An SAA representative said that […]

STELLA MAPENZAUSWA, Harare | Tuesday ZIMBABWES opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), says its defeat in a violence-wracked parliamentary by-election by the ruling party of President Robert Mugabe is a victory of evil over that which is good. The by-election, in the rural constituency of Bikita West, 330km southeast of Harare, was seen as […]

SA retailer New Clicks Holdings this week forecast a 14% year-on-year rise in its December 2000 sales. ”The festive season sales weren’t too bad, said New Clicks Chief Executive Officer Trevor Honneysett. New Clicks is a discount retailer of toiletries, cosmetics, gifts, recorded music and other merchandise on a cash basis. Honneysett announced that the […]

EMELIA SITHOLE, Johannesburg | Tuesday SOUTH African stocks pranced to an 11-month peak on Monday, buoyed by further gains in technology, media and telecoms issues as well as continuing strength in platinum shares. Mobile phone operator M-Cell leapt 6.60% to end at R26.65 on healthy volumes of 1.1m shares, pushing up controlling shareholder Johnnic 5.22% […]

SUDAN?S Islamist government refuses to ratify an international treaty on women’s rights as it contradicts national traditions, President Omar al-Beshir said in remarks published on Sunday. Beshir told a rally held near here Friday to celebrate his re-election as president last month that he found parts of the treaty “contradicted Sudanese values and traditions,” the […]