A 19-year-old Willowvale man is recovering in Butterworth Hospital after he amputated his penis earlier this month, hospital sources said. It is alleged the man circumcised himself after smoking dagga. “His condition has improved, though he has lost his penis,” a hospital official said. Six other circumcision initiates were reported to be in a satisfactory […]

THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) this week granted amnesty to safety and liaison department permanent secretary Dumisani Mafu on eight counts of murder. Mafu, 43, was also granted amnesty for a number of other offences, including five counts of attempted murder, malicious damage to property and unlawful possession of firearms, ammunition and explosives. In […]

CLAIRE KEETON, Pretoria | Saturday THE UN refugee agency is having to cut back its Africa programmes because funds from donor governments are insufficient, its southern Africa director said this week. “The UN budget for Kosovo was 90% funded. Africa only got 60% of its total budget. This means cutting down on programmes,” said Ilunga […]

EIGHT Angolans drowned while trying illegally to cross the Orange River from southern Namibia into South Africa at the weekend, Namibian police said. The eight were among 14 young Angolans who tried to enter South Africa legally through the southern Noordoewer border post but were turned back because they did not have visas. They then […]

FOUR people have been arrested in three separate drug busts on the same flight from Sao Paolo, Brazil. South African police arrested a Venezuelan mother and son at Johannesburg’s airport after 12kg of cocaine was found in their hand luggage, and a 40-year-old South African man who had 3kg of cocaine in his possession. A […]

A NIGERIAN man charged with cannibalism after being found under a Lagos bridge surrounded by body parts has been pronounced unfit to stand trial. Clifford ‘the cannibal’ Orji is suffering from paranoid-schizophrenia, a psychologist told the Ikeja High Court. Orji was charged with the murder of several people and “misconduct with regard to corpses”. At […]

THE death toll on South African roads since the start of the summer holiday season on December 1 had risen to 226 by Wednesday night, according to the road safety organisation Arrive Alive. 94 of those who had died were passengers, 71 pedestrians and 61 were drivers. 47 people have died on the roads in […]

OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Cape Town | Saturday THE Cape Town High Court has dismissed an amnesty application by the rightwing killers of South African Communist Party leader and liberation hero Chris Hani, saying they had failed to disclose all the facts surrounding the assassination. Lawyers for Janusz Walus and Clive Derby Lewis, who are serving life […]

SOUTH African police have arrested a Congo national for drug dealing and confiscated Mandrax tablets worth R2.5m. The 26-year-old man, who had been under police surveillance, was arrested at Johannesburg railway station as he was about to board a train to Cape Town. – AFP

MARIANNE MERTEN, Cape Town | Friday POLYGRAPH tests, random searches of cricketers’ rooms and luggage, a duty to report improper approaches and undercover stings to test players’ honesty are among the suggestions from the King Commission of Inquiry into Cricket Match-fixing. Proposed measures include an UCB-controlled accreditation system to contact players, the monitoring of telephone […]