NAMIBIAN President Sam Nujoma made the national army band replay the national anthem at a parade because it was too slow, The Namibian newspaper reported. They were playing at a passing-out parade for national youth service recruits at the Walvis Base military base. “I don’t know why everyone plays our anthem so slowly, even internationally,” […]

THE South African National Parks board is conducting a public opinion poll on the use of cellphones in its reserves. SANP head of environmental services Murray Macgregor said the law on environmental impact assessments required that the establishment of a cellular network within a national park be investigated. The Kruger National Park has cellular coverage […]

SAM AOLA-OOKO, Mombasa | Tuesday CAMPAIGNERS in Kenya have come up with an ingenious new weapon in the fight against HIV and Aids: the minibus. Across Africa, minibuses are the most popular form of public transport, especially in towns and cities. In Kenya, where they are called matatu, or threes, because a ride once cost […]

LIFESAVERS aboard a rescue helicopter saved four children who were drowning off South Africa’s eastern coast within half an hour on Monday. An official said the helicopter crew spotted a boy of 12 in distress in the Indian Ocean at about 1:00 pm. Less than half-an-hour later the helicopter spotted three children, aged about 13 […]

MOZAMBIQUE’S economic growth, which had averaged 10% annually prior to devastating floods early in 2000, will suffer from the disaster for another year, a government minister said this week. The southern African country saw all efforts made since 1992 – after a 16-year civil war – washed away at the beginning of this year by […]

ERITREA said this week that it looked foward to a “future of peace and hope” with Ethiopia after both countries formally ended more than two years of war. On December 12 in Algiers, Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi signed a comprehensive peace accord to end a conflict that erupted on […]

KWAZULU-Natal provincial traffic chief John Schnell says weather and traffic volumes have played a major role in South Africa’s holiday death toll, which had reached 373 by Monday night – but warned that most head-on collisions and rear-endings were preceded by a traffic law violation. The Arrive Alive centre in Pretoria said speed, drinking and […]

AN impoverished rural school in Mpumalanga benefited to the tune of R250 000 when a Canadian man gave his wife, a former schoolteacher, an unusual birthday present. Ray Menard and his wife, Christine, handed over two new classrooms, a storeroom and three revamped classrooms to Lepesi Primary School in Luphisi tribal village, about 60km east […]

NIGERIAN security agents have arrested the chief accountant working for late military ruler Sani Abacha. Ibrahim Al-Amin was arrested at his home in Kano, northern Nigeria, and driven to the capital Abuja for interrogation, said the family member. Al-Amin is the main accountant working for the Abacha family and closely linked to the family’s financial […]

STATE-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp said this week it had signed an agreement with Italy’s Agip to jointly develop two new oilfields in an offshore Nigerian block. Agip will partner NNPC in developing the Okono and Okpoho fields in block OPL 91. Past estimates of OPL 91’s potential have been put at about 20 000 […]