CAR crashes on South Africa?s roads killed 171 fewer people in December 2000 than in the previous year – but the country remains one of the world’s most dangerous places to drive, according to government statistics released this week. The Christmas season death toll was down 17.8% – to 785 people killed in 565 fatal […]
OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Johannesburg | Tuesday RELIGIOUS groups in Nigeria and Zambia have blasted the spread of anti-Aids messages on the continent, saying a seminar on HIV/Aids and a safe sex campaign would encourage promiscuity and moral decay. The council of Islamic clergy in Kano in northern Nigeria urged Muslims to boycott a US-backed seminar on […]
A CARGO plane crashed on take-off in Angola’s diamond-rich Lunda North province, killing a man who had stopped to relieve himself close to the runway, the country’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said. All seven people on board the plane, registered to Gemini Air Cargo, escaped unhurt. – Reuters
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday SOUTHERN Africas cholera epidemic, which has already killed at least 110 people and infected 15 000 others in Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland, has spread to Zambia and southern Malawi. Blantyre City Medical Services Director Lycester Bandawe said 40 residents were admitted to hospital with severe diarrhoea, and recent flooding […]
FRANCE Telecom has become the majority shareholder in Egypt’s largest mobile telephone company, MobiNil, after buying $252m in shares from the US firm Motorola, the French firm said. Following the transaction, France Telecom increased its stake in MobiNil, or the Egyptian Company for Mobile Services, from 46.1% to 71.25%. Cairo-based Orascom Telecom, which has bought […]
INTERNATIONAL media watchdog Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) is sending a delegation to Algeria next week to investigate the case of five missing journalists and launch a media awareness campaign to try to uncover their fate. RSF says it is practically certain that two were kidnapped by Islamic terrorists and three by the state between […]
SOUTH African pizza lovers who enjoy a generous topping of anchovy are in luck. South Africa’s anchovy population is at its highest recorded level and the government has decided to boost the total allowable catch for the 2001 season by 207% to 378_000 tonnes. The Environmental Affairs and Tourism Ministry said the rising anchovy population […]
POWER supply has been restored to two mines owned by Zambia’s Roan Antelope Mining Corporation (Ramcoz), paving the way for a resumption of copper production, the company’s receivers said. Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC) had reduced electricity supply to Ramcoz’s Luansya and Baluba mines in October in a dispute over a $20m debt. The state-owned Zambia […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday POLICE have admitted that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela led a bizarre police raid on a Johannesburg pensioner’s home to search for goods she claimed had been stolen from her daughter. Madikizela-Mandela, former President Nelson Mandela’s ex-wife, raided 66-year-old Stella Kallmoka’s home in the Johannesburg suburb of Yeoville on Sunday night, accompanied by […]
JOHANNESBURG police have asked local authorities to drain the artificial Bruma Lake, where five bodies have been found in the past nine months, fearing a serial killer is on the loose. Two more bodies of middle-aged men were found this week in the lake, east of the city centre, which is surrounded by a shopping […]