WOMEN cabinet ministers in South Africa have banded together to defend President Thabo Mbeki against accusations that he is a womaniser. A statement by Minister of Public Service Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, issued on behalf of all the women in the cabinet, and women deputy ministers, was published in the Sunday Independent newspaper. It says they took […]
More than 11_000 people commit suicide in France every year, most of them men and aged between 25 and 34, while 160_000 make suicide attempts, according to an official study. The government report said suicide causes 2.1% of deaths. But among the 25-34 year olds it is the primary cause of death. It is the […]
THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has praised Botswana for its efforts to fight Aids while expressing concern over the economic and social impact of the disease on the country. It noted that Botswana had made a marked effort in stemming the spread of the disease, thanks to stepped-up education and awareness programs and medical intervention […]
A JUDGE has lifted genocide charges against a Rwandan facing deportation from Canada. Leon Mugesera was considered a right-hand man to former president Juvenal Habyarimana, whose death in a plane crash on April 6, 1994 is believed to have triggered the murder of between 500 000 and 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus by Hutu […]
HUGH NEVILL, Johannesburg | Monday SOME bereaved family members collapsed in tears on Sunday as church ministers “cleansed” Johannesburg’s Ellis Park sports stadium after a stampede left 43 dead and 160 injured last week. The ministers dipped fly-whisks into bowls of holy water, then sprinkled the stands where thousands of would-be spectators surged into an […]
TWO Egyptians have been sentenced to three months in jail and $27 fines for creating an Internet site featuring personal advertisements for homosexuals. The ruling by the appeals court lightened a sentence by a lower court that had condemned one of the defendants to 15 months in jail and the other to three months in […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kinshasa | Monday DONA Byakadwa’s dog shack is one of the few businesses thriving in warring Congo’s teeming capital, selling the only meat affordable to some in its working class – mutt. ”I am making more and more money,” Byakadwa boasted in his dusty yard, where neighbours press forward each morning with lidded […]
AS Easter approaches, so the killing season starts in the valleys of Zululand. It is time for the men to come home for the holidays, and it is time for them to settle old scores. “We can almost predict when it is going to start,” says policeman Jacques Lombard. “Most of the men in the […]
EMSIE FERREIRA, Pretoria | Sunday THE South African government and 39 international pharmaceutical companies this week resume a landmark court battle about how far a developing country can go to force down the price of medicines. The case is being hailed by activists worldwide as the one that will determine what matters more – the […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Mbabane | Sunday POLICE in Swaziland are hunting a serial sex killer – or killers – after discovering 24 bodies in shallow graves in the tiny mountain kingdom in southern Africa. Radio and the Times of Swaziland said the bodies, most of them women, and apparently raped, had been found over the past […]