THE World Bank has blocked a loan of some $75m to Senegal intended to help with the restructuring of its energy sector, Senegalese Energy Minister Abdoulaye Bathily said. The Senegalese government in September terminated an agreement under which a Franco-Canadian consortium had taken over the management of the state electricity company, SENELEC, along with a […]

POLICE in Zimbabwe shot dead a six-year-old boy asleep in the back seat of his father’s car while they drove home on the outskirts of the capital, local media reported on Saturday. The shooting in Chitungwiza town, which took place earlier this week, was the second time Zimbabwe police allegedly killed innocent people in less […]

THE South African driver of a tour bus in which 26 British nationals and a local tour guide were killed in an accident in Mpumalanga in 1999 will be tried in the Lydenburg Regional Court on a charge of culpable homicide and an alternative charge of reckless driving between April 2 and 6. Phillip Dube, […]

THE death toll on South Africa’s roads since the start of the new year reached 137 on Saturday, the road safety campaign Arrive Alive said. The total of road deaths since the holiday season began in December has now reached 922. A total of 785 people – 171 fewer than in December 1999 – were […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maputo | Saturday THE Zambezi river has risen to worrying levels, prompting fears of severe flooding in central Mozambique, an official said Friday, about a year after devastating floods in the southern African country. “We are now getting worried with the latest developments in the Zambezi river”, said Joao Zamissa, head of planning […]

THEY may be jobless and poor, but a group of Mpumalanga women are about to build spacious low-cost homes after creating a kitty to boost their State housing grant. The 180 members of the Vukuzimele Community Project near Nelspruit will build homes of 56 square metres – 20 square metres bigger than a standard low-cost […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Saturday FIVE of the nine provinces in South Africa have reported cholera cases since the start of the initial outbreak in KwaZulu-Natal five months ago, the national Department of Health said on Friday. The outbreak in KwaZulu-Natal has resulted in 64 deaths and nearly 18 000 people have been infected by […]

AN Egyptian labourer had a heart attack and died Saturday from the excitement of laying his hands on a windfall of money he had been awaiting for around a decade, police in southern Egypt said. Ramadan Abu Seif, 45, had just picked up a cheque for 9_000 Egyptian pounds (around $2_400 dollars) in compensation from […]

NIGERIAN President Olusegun Obasanjo has ordered the removal of judges indicted by a investigation panel as a part of measures to clean up the country’s judiciary. The panel was set up by late dictator General Sani Abacha in 1993 to probe the judiciary and submitted its report a year later, recommending that some judges be […]