ZAMBIA’S troubled Roan Antelope Mining Corp (Ramcoz) has been put under receivership over an unspecified amount of money owed to state-owned Zambia National Commercial Bank (Zanaco). Roan has faced financial difficulties over the past year leading to electricity cuts by the Copperbelt Energy Corporation to just six megawatts from 27 megawatts over a $20m debt. […]

MARINUS Daling, the chairman of life assurer Sanlam Ltd, has resigned as a director of Absa Bank to focus his attention on Sanlam’s activities. ”He Daling has indicated that, at this stage, he would like to give more attention to the development and affairs of Sanlam Limited and accordingly asked that he be relieved of […]

FINAL year pupils at a leading Swaziland school failed their English literature exams this week because teachers taught them the wrong syllabus. Siphocosini High School in the capital Mbabane confirmed that pupils were unable to answer 66 percent of their final literature exam because the school used an outdated syllabus and prescribed incorrect setwork books. […]

KENYA has banned trawler fishing in its Indian Ocean waters, after brawls between foreign and local fishermen and amid concern for the environment and breeding grounds, officials said. Trawling within five nautical miles on the Kenyan north coast has led to deaths of hundreds of turtles, marine biologists said. The three-month ban was implemented by […]

SWAZILAND’S feared Makhundu 60-day detention-without-trial law is illegal and cannot be used to arrest political dissidents as threatened, the kingdom’s Attorney General Phesheya Dlamini said this week. The law was repealed by King Mswati III in September 1993 and would first have to be officially reinstated and gazetted before it could be used again. Swaziland […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Thursday A FORMER Military Intelligence agent has revealed a bizarre scheme to kill an ANC spy with mamba poison to cover up the SA Defence Force’s role in the execution of five Mozambican resistance fighters. Testifying in the trial of apartheid chemical warfare expert Wouter Basson, former MI commander Cornelius Johannes […]

BRENDAN BOYLE, Pretoria | Thursday MIXED reactions have greeted a decision by a Pretoria court to grant bail to the six white police officers alleged to have set dogs on illegal job-seekers. While demonstrators outside the court shouted “one settler, one bullet” and demanded the six be jailed, the accused’s delighted families said they would […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Thursday A SOUTH African farmers’ union has urged its members to improve their markmanship to counter continuing attacks by criminals. “We are encouraging farmers unequivocally to behave as if a national state of emergency is in place,” the Transvaal Agricultural Union said in a statement. Latest statistics show that 88 South […]

EMSIE FERREIRA, Johannesburg | Thursday CHILD sex trafficking – with children as young as four – is on the rise in South Africa, driven by deepening poverty that sometimes sees a family force a child into prostitution as its only source of income, says a report released this week. The report says there are an […]