HOTEL and retail group Meikles Africa has closed a 150-room wing at its Meikles Hotel in Zimbabwe, local media reported. The Financial Gazette quoted Meikles’ Commercial Director Mark Collins as saying the hotel – whose occupancy rate had dwindled to about 20% – would operate a 180-room wing until economic conditions improved. CUSTOM SHARE SERVICE […]

SEVERAL members of Zambia’s ruling party want to see the constitution amended so that President Frederick Chiluba can seek a third term in office. Copperbelt members of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) have petitioned its national secretary to propose a constitutional amendment. Both the national and the MMD party constitutions forbid Chiluba from holding […]

AN Mpumalanga traffic cop and the owner of a Gauteng-based driving school have appeared briefly in the Evander Magistrate’s Court in Mpumalanga in connection with selling fraudulent licences. Leandra Municipal Council traffic cop Andrea Lourens and Ace Driving School owner Lenish Moodley of Springs were not asked to plead on fraud charges and are out […]

SOUTHERN Africa faces a reduced cereal deficit of 293 000 tonnes in the current marketing season with an overall surplus seen for maize, a regional food security unit said. In its latest quarterly bulletin, the Southern African Development Community Regional Early Warning Unit said cereal availability for the current 2000/2001 marketing year was estimated at […]

SWAZI authorities are probing indications that drunken soccer fans who crammed into a passenger bus at the weekend caused the nation’s worst ever public transport accident. The overcrowded Inawe Ngwane Bus Service intercity coach plunged off the Lubombo Highway in eastern Swaziland on Saturday, killing 30 passengers and trapping the unnamed bus driver in the […]

THE manager of a prominent security company in Mpumalanga and two other men this week walked free on murder charges because their case docket disappeared from a police locker over the festive season. The Nelspruit Regional Court withdrew the case against owner and manager of Lowveld Professional Security, Chris Daniel van der Walt, 35, his […]

PHILLIP NKOSI, Pietersburg | Tuesday NORTHERN Provinces government has paid almost R1,5m to 83 dead officials – despite warnings that the money was disappearing into thin air. Provincial Auditor General Steve Lekutle slammed the provinces finance department for the scam in a new report this week, warning that very little of the money had been […]

THE Nigerian government has told the agency running the country’s 16 airports to get rid of more than 50 planes abandoned years ago. The hulks of the planes have lain for years at airports around the country, and the aviation ministry has decided a clear-up is necessary. The agency is in the process of acquiring […]

UP to three quarters, or 150_000, of Namibia’s seal pups could starve this season if the weather continues to push the fish they eat away from the shore, a marine biologist warned. Trade winds from the southern Atlantic, which should cause an upwelling of a plankton-rich cold current along the coast, had weakened. The fish […]

IN an effort to prevent vagrants from defecating in the street, the Mbabane city council is considering sprinkling muti on human faeces that will cause the offender’s bottom to swell. Spokesman for Swaziland’s capital, Bongani Dlamini, said the council was at its wits end about the messy matter and also wanted to hire council police […]