THE Kruger National Park will auction off 20 white rhino next month in an attempt to raise funds for the South African National Parks (SANP) Park Development Fund. SANP’s director of parks, Johan van der Merwe, said on Wednesday that the auction is expected to raise at least R4,5-million for development projects in smaller game […]

SOME 53 Casamance refugees deported from Guinea-Bissau have arrived in Ziguinchor, southern Senegal, from Sao Dominga where they had been since last week. They were met at the border by local administrative authorities and NGOs represented in Ziguinchor, which took them to Ziguinchor’s children’s centre for further assistance. The returnees – 33 children, 13 women […]

A SOUTH African provincial health minister called on Tuesday for free condoms to be distributed to schoolchildren as young as 12. “To think that schoolchildren are not having sex is … like thinking we are not going to have rugby next season,” Nick Koornhof, the Western Cape health minister, told a seminar. “You must link […]

EIGHT people, including five traders from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), drowned at the weekend after a fishing boat capsized in the Lake Albert area of western Uganda’s Hoima district. Police said the boat was overloaded. The boat was travelling between two Ugandan ports on the lake at the time of the accident. None […]

CRIME in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, has reached alarming proportions with the UN rating the city on a par with crime-prone regions like Bogota and Colombia. In Nairobi cars can be snatched at gunpoint and women donning jewellery are ready targets for snatchers. The surge has galvanised ordinary Kenyans into mounting neighbourhood vigilante groups, while […]

ABSA Bank and BoE Bank have entered into a business venture called MultiBank Processing where Absa Bank will in future maintain all the cheque processing functions of BoE Bank. It is the first time in South Africa that such an agreement has been reached between two banks. Absa Bank approached BoE Bank for a business […]

FRENCH newspapers on Tuesday paid homage to Cameroonian composer and writer Francis Bebey, who died on Monday morning in Paris at the age of 72, sending shock waves through the African music world. Bebey, who had been in poor health for some time, was instrumental in bringing African music to the rest of the world. […]

THOUSANDS of civilians on Tuesday fled southern Bangui as the Central African Republic’s army stormed areas where rebel soldiers fell back after a bloody coup bid against President Ange-Felix Patasse. Residents said a number of rebel soldiers had been killed in the mopping-up operation, which was marked by automatic gunfire and shellbursts. By afternoon, however, […]

HUGO YOUNG, Pretoria | Tuesday SENIOR army officers in Zimbabwe have secretly warned the South African government that they may launch a coup against Robert Mugabe if the growing political and economic crisis results in riots. Pretoria has strongly advised against any move to overthrow the Zimbabwean president by force but has been made aware […]