A 23-YEAR-OLD man has become the first victim of strict Islamic law in Nigeria’s Katsina state when he was publicly given 100 cane strokes for fornication, local radio reported. An Islamic court in Malunfashi town ordered the flogging of Lawal Sada for impregnating an 18-year-old girl out of wedlock. In addition, Sada will serve a […]

Malawian President Bakili Muluzi has sacked the country’s inspector general of police, Bernard Mphinji, on allegations that he frustrated the British-sponsored police reform programme. Mphinji is alleged to have frustrated efforts to reform the 6 000 police personnel from a state-terror machinery to a professional police not influenced by politicians. – AFP

ANGOLA’S civil aviation authority has grounded all Russian-built Antonov planes after an Antonov 24 crashed this week, killing all 39 people aboard, Angolan radio reported. The plane with 34 passengers and five crew – including four Ukrainians – went down just five minutes after taking off from the capital Luanda. The accident was the second […]

THREE men, including an SA Revenue Services employee, are expected to appear in the Kempton Park Magistrate’s Court this week for apparently stealing R6,1m worth of diamonds from the Johannesburg International Airport. Police recovered about R5m worth of the diamonds. Last Wednesday a parcel containing the precious stones was locked in a safe at customs […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Saturday POLICE are investigating allegations that the 12 people killed in an explosion in a floor polish factory near Johannesburg had been locked into the factory on Friday afternoon and had no emergency escape route. Superintendent Richard Luvhengo said an explosion triggered a fire in the in Lenasia, south of Johannesburg, […]

MALIAN President Alpha Konare has declared a new West African parliament officially open. The assembly was set up by the 16-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), of which Konare is the current chairman. The assembly, which began its proceedings in a conference centre in the Malian capital Bamako, is made up of sitting […]

NIGERIAN aviation authorities have declared 450 aeroplanes, including 10 previously used by state-owned Nigerian Airways, unsafe to fly. The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) said they had removed the craft from the register of planes licensed to fly in Nigeria’s airspace. The NCAA said the aircraft had been abandoned at various airports in the West […]

EMMANUEL GIROUD, Nairobi | Saturday SITTING on a Kenyatta Hospital bed shared with another patient, a man called out repeatedly for a doctor. He is lucky: although clearly in pain, he will survive the effects of a batch of methanol-laced moonshine that this week claimed more than 90 lives and sent some 400 to hospital. […]

THE Kenyan government has successfully negotiated a new repayment schedule of its foreign debts following a meeting with the Paris Club, Finance Minister Chrysanthus Okemo said. The new schedule affects some $300m worth of debt arrears and maturities falling due in the year beginning in July. Okemo said he had cited the drought ravaging Kenya […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Saturday BARELY a week after Zimbabwe’s highest court declared that President Robert Mugabe’s “fast-track resettlement programme” violated farmers’ rights, Mugabe’s elder sister Sabina has demanded that a white farmer leave his house so she could move in. The Commercial Farmers’ Union said in its latest bulletin on the anarchy in rural […]