OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday FORMER premiers Tokyo Sexwale and Mathews Phosa have scorned allegations that they are part of a plot aimed at toppling President Thabo Mbeki. Former ANC party secretary-general Cyril Ramaphosa was also named on SA television as being part of the scheme. All three, who still have significant political support in […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki charged on Tuesday that unnamed rivals are conspiring to oust him. His first term of office expires in three years, but rumours are rife that one or more rivals within the ruling African National Congress (ANC) will challenge him then. ”People have got natural ambitions. […]
ABHIK KUMAR CHANDA, Abuja | Wednesday NIGERIA may be hosting Africa’s biggest Aids conference on Thursday but its track record in combating the pandemic is pathetic, HIV sufferers say, recounting horror stories of discrimination, apathy and ignorance. Even worse, they say, is the official response to the pandemic. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is home […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday JUDGE Nathan Erasmus, who is under constant police guard after receiving death threats when he sentenced two Pagad members to 11 life terms for murder, has collapsed from stress and is receiving medical treatment, the Cape Times reports. The judge was apparently told that it was not a question […]
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THE European Commission has approved 282m euros ($254m) in aid to Senegal over five years. The new allocation is 10% more than the last one accorded to the West African nation, and is in the form of grants and gifts, said the statement from the commission’s office in Senegal. The aid comes from the 9th […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Paris | Tuesday FRANCE has denied that it is behind a damning UN report accusing Uganda, Rwanda and rebels fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) of looting the country’s mineral resources. French Cooperation Minister Charles Josselin described as “totally aberrant” accusations by rebels that Paris had dictated the conclusions of a […]
DUMISANE LUBISI, Pietersburg | Tuesday LAWYERS defending nine rugby players accused of killing a rural teenager have demanded that the presiding magistrate recuse himself after he was caught chatting to the prosecutor in the case during lunch recess. Magistrate Ronnie Rambau of the Pietersburg Magistrate’s Court is presiding over the bail application of nine members […]
TWO very loud explosions rocked the Ethiopian capital late on Sunday, blasts which the police immediately attributed to artillery fired in error. State radio, citing Addis Ababa police, said that “the RPG (rocket-propelled grenades) mortar shots were fired accidentally.” There was no loss of life and no material damage, the radio said. Shortly after the […]
NIGERIA?S state-run electricity company NEPA is anxiously awaiting the launch of a US power project in the economic capital Lagos, officials said on Wednesday. The US firm Enron was due to have begun supplying electricity to the city grid in December, but the project has yet to take off. Authorities in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, […]