OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday THE rightwing assassins of South African Communist Party leader and liberation hero Chris Hani have launched a court bid to have their life sentences scrapped. Lawyers for Janusz Walus and Clive Derby Lewis have asked the Cape Town High Court to reverse a decision by the country’s Truth and […]

MOROCCAN police have arrested a Spanish truck driver trying to smuggle 5.35 tonnes of cannabis resin into Spain over the weekend. The 28-year-old driver allegedly loaded the drug into crates marked to be holding octopuses in the southwestern Moroccan town of Agadir. A police investigation is underway. – AFP

SIZWE SAMAYENDE, Nelspruit | Tuesday CONTROVERSIAL insecticide DDT, which has been banned in the United States since 1973 after being linked to cancer, birth defects and neurological damage, will be sprayed in rural homes in Mpumalanga this summer in a bid to kill the mosquito that transmits malaria. Deputy director for vector-borne diseases in the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Tuesday ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe’s party has won a by-election in Harare’s working-class suburb of Marondera in a contest marked by persistent intimidation of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Ambrose Mutinhiri of the ruling Zanu-PF party won the by-election with 7376 votes to the 4366 for Shadreck Chipangura of the […]

NIGERIAN oil workers have gone on strike, holding up output from the world’s sixth largest oil exporter to press demands for a massive pay rise. Nigeria exports more than two million barrels per day (bpd) of high quality crude oil, most of it going to the United States and accounting for eight percent of US […]

NIGERIAN President Olusegun Obasanjo has pledged to speed up the workings of the justice system to reduce the number of remand prisoners in Nigeria. The president, who was jailed for more than three years under the regime of late dictator Sani Abacha, said the government would build new prison buildings and separate convicts from prisoners […]

THE Nigerian government will this week unveil evidence of “massive criminal sabotage” of electricity installations around the country, officials said. President Olusegun Obasanjo is reported to be furious over the continuing dire performance of the state-run electricity company NEPA whose output recently fell to around 1500 megawatts from around 2 000 megawatts after a series […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday LAWYERS for African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni have threatened to launch a defamation case unless the Sunday Times newspaper retracts a weekend report which suggested that he attempted to squash a probe into South Africa’s R43bn arms deal. Yengeni’s legal representative, Mallinicks Attorneys, said in a statement: “The […]

GUINEA-BISSAU authorities have arrested almost 200 army officers and politicians, along with separatist fighters from neighbouring Senegal, whom they accuse of working with fugitive General Ansumane Mane in a foiled coup bid. A source said those detained included 73 officers and top politicians “very close” to Mane, a former military ruler who has been on […]