SENEGAL’S President Abdoulaye Wade has urged Africans to take a measured response to fighting racism outside their continent, and focus more effort on resolving ethnic problems at home. “A Burkinabe in Ivory Coast is being treated in a way that a black person would not be treated in Europe,” Wade told participants at the opening […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Port Harcourt | Tuesday THE families of four slain leaders of the southern Nigerian Ogoni people have accused the late human rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, of instigating their murder seven years ago. Saro-Wiwa and eight others were executed on November 10, 1995, after being found guilty by a special tribunal of murdering the […]

PRIVATE companies have already invested R122m in six sites that were commercialised in the Kruger National Park three months ago. The sites will be developed as luxury lodges and are expected to generate a combined total of about R2,4m in the first year and R22m after 20 years. 630 permanent jobs, excluding construction work, will […]

REPRESENTATIVES from Cameroon, Malawi, Niger and Guinea-Bissau will this week renegotiate their debt with the Paris Club group of creditor countries. All four African countries are on the list of Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) identified by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank for special consideration in debt relief if they demonstrate […]

A JUDICIAL panel of inquiry into the finances and management of Nigeria’s corruption ridden state-run telecommunications company NITEL has begun its public sitting. The panel, headed by former high court judge Daniel Ishola-Adeniyi, will look into the finances and management of NITEL and its sister company, M-TEL, in the past years. NITEL is widely considered […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday OPPOSITION parties have slammed African National Congress (ANC) members of Parliament’s public accounts committee for backtracking on their call for the involvement of the Heath unit to help investigate the governments R43bn arms deal. The Democratic Alliance (DA) and African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) charged the ANC members with […]

A JAILED Guinean opposition politician has begun a hunger strike to press for his release after serving a two-year prison sentence which ended last month. Antoine Soromou is a friend and political ally of the main opposition leader Alpha Conde, head of the Guinean People’s Rally (RPG), who is also behind bars. Soromou was convicted […]

A YOUNG Egyptian woman is filing for divorce after she woke up from a New Year’s drinking binge to find herself married, the daily Al-Akhbar newspaper reported. A Cairo court was told the unidentified woman had gone out drinking with friends from work on New Year’s Eve and had no recollection of having married one […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday A GROUP of Pretoria businessmen accused of selling more than 700 dud computers to the Mpumalanga government could lose the plush mansions they bought with the proceeds of the dirty deal. Police confirmed that the Asset Forfeiture Unit has been brought on board to seize the properties in Pretoria and […]

DESPITE public unease at the prospect of Democratic Congo’s slain leader being succeeded by his son, Joseph Kabila is not likely to leave the stage quickly, say analysts. Diplomats say that any political manoeuvring among his father’s former aides is unlikely to affect his own position in the very near term. ”Even if there are […]