CHRISTIAAN Barnard, the South African surgeon who transplanted the first human heart, has brought a Russian toddler to South Africa for emergency surgery as a favour to Soviet former president Mikhail Gorbachev, press reports said. Barnard was quoted as saying two-year-old Gleb Endokimov has a constriction in the main aorta as well as in the […]
Pretoria | Monday SOUTH Africa’s defence department was granted two weeks’ postponement on Monday of public hearings into alleged corruption in the government’s R50-billion arms procurement deal. Legal counsel for the department asked the presiding panel, chaired by Public Protector Selby Baqwa, to postpone the hearing due to its complicated nature. Baqwa granted the postponement […]
THERE has been an unprecedented growth in tourism in Africa during the past decade, according to data made available at the 36th meeting of the World Tourism Organisations Commission for Africa in Windhoek, Namibia. Yussuf Abdullahi Sukkar, chairman of the Commission for Africa, said that international tourist arrivals in the 1990s had increased by an […]
THE Democratic Republic of Congo’s government on Monday floated its currency, effectively devaluing it by 84 % against the dollar, and raised gasoline prices four-fold in measures it said would help stabilise the economy. President Joseph Kabila had promised economic renewal in January, when he replaced his murdered father as leader of the vast, mineral-rich, […]
Blantyre | Monday TWO Malawians have been confirmed dead while two others are battling for their lives following three days of rioting and police shootings in the northern border district of Chitipa. The dead are said to be a 10-year-old girl and a man. Seventeen other people, including two MPs from the opposition Alliance for […]
PREPARATIONS are underway for the repatriation of several hundred Namibians in exile in Botswana following recent negotiations between the ministry of home affairs and the United Nations, the ‘Namibian’ reported on Monday. Thousands of Namibians fled to Botswana in late 1998 following the uncovering of a secessionist movement in the region led by former opposition […]
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THE United States is to send emergency food aid to Sudan to help both the government-controlled north of the country as well as rebel-held south despite Washington’s tense relations with Khartoum, US officials said on Sunday. Andrew Niatsos, the head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) said the 40_000 ton of food for […]
A TUGBOAT and a US coastguard cutter both failed overnight to get a towline to a crippled car-carrier listing in heavy swells off South Africa’s southeast coast. Terry Taylor, representative for the port authority in Port Elizabeth, said an ocean-going salvage tugboat was on its way to aid the Panamanian-registered Modern Drive, and that three […]
THE SA rand held steady at firmer levels against the dollar in slow Monday trade, but struggled to pierce through 7.88 technical resistance in the absence of London and New York players, traders said. The rand made feeble attempts to break through 7.88/dollar, but was restrained by insufficient domestic factors, settling around 7.8875 against the […]