THE Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has boosted security as a tense Kinshasa prepares to bury the country’s assassinated president Laurent Kabila in the capital. Angola, one of Kabila’s allies in the huge conflict that swamped his country during his rule, said it was sending in extra troops amid fears that the ceremony could spark […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday THE state and the taxpayer last year lost at least R390m because government is preventing the Judge Willem Heaths Special Investigative Unit from investigating cases of corruption, says the unit’s annual report. According to a report in Afrikaans daily Beeld, the figure of R390m for the financial year ending […]

THE man who introduced South Africa’s Protea to America, the late Howard Asper, has been awarded the 2000 California Floriculture Hall of Fame Award. Asper, who died in 1993, took a Protea seed from its native South African soil in 1961 and successfully propagated it in California in 1965. Today, he is widely recognised as […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Middelburg | Wednesday SOUTH Africa’s Human Rights Commission has urged Mpumalanga’s education department to broaden its probe into racial discrimination at state schools to include bias against the disabled and certain religions. SAHRC commissioner Charlotte McClain said it was essential to deal with all discriminatory admission policies at schools and not to only […]

SOUTH Africa’s motorists, who have suffered a 30% increase in the fuel price in the past 10 months, will experience some relief with a drop in the petrol price next month. A Department of Minerals and Energy official could not confirm reports that the price would decrease by 20 cents, but said there would definitely […]

THE Nigerian army is not considering a pardon for 25 wounded soldiers recently jailed for mutiny and disobedience, says army chief Victor Malu. The soldiers, who were wounded while fighting under the west African peacekeeping force ECOMOG in Liberia and Sierra Leone, were last month jailed for life for protesting against conditions surrounding their medical […]

THE coalition government of Guinea-Bissau is in danger of collapse after six government members from the country’s second most powerful party announced they had pulled out. The Guinea-Bissau Resistance (RGB/Bafata movement) said President Kumba Yala had not respected a political agreement and had reshuffled his cabinet this week without consulting his coalition partners. – AFP

POPULAR South African music star Brenda Fassie has arrived in the Liberian capital Monrovia to take part in celebrations marking the birthday and fourth wedding anniversary of Liberian President Charles Taylor. Thousands of Liberians lined the 45km route from Roberts International Airport to the city centre to catch a glimpse of Fassie. The singer is […]

A MPUMALANGA farmer has appeared in court in connection with the death of a man allegedly mauled by his boerboel dogs. It is alleged that Christopher Livanos’ three dogs mauled the man so badly that he had not been identified. His age could not be estimated.

HUGH NEVILL, Kinshasa | Wednesday THE Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is to swear in as president Joseph Kabila, the young and politically untested general who inherits the war-torn chaos of this huge African country a day after his murdered father and predecessor was laid to rest. Kabila was hurriedly appointed as the country’s leader […]