COMMUNITY unrest in southern Nigeria has prompted the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell to declare force majeure and reduce deliveries from the Bonny oil terminal to 250 000 barrels per day (bpd). The force majeure was declared this week at the terminal in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, and it will continue through the end of […]

AUTHORITIES in a town in northern Nigeria have ordered women to stay at home at night to prevent immorality, before strict Islamic law is introduced in the state next month, an official said. Women in Dandi in northwestern Kebbi state have objected to the legislation, describing it as a rights violation and suggesting that men […]

WELL diggers have unearthed a mass grave in a central Angolan village which was the scene of clashes between government troops and rebels, official radio reported this week. The grave, containing an undetermined number of skeletons, was discovered in the village of Catabola, about 700km southeast of the capital Luanda. The slaughter of those in […]

NIGERIA’S President Olusegun Obasanjo says the bulk of some $800m looted by late military ruler Sani Abacha and his associates and since recovered will be used for development. The amount will go into the federal government budget for 2001 expected to be presented this week to the National Assembly, an official statement from the presidency […]

FOUR people have been confirmed dead and 109 injured after a head-on collision between two Metrorail passenger trains in Wadeville outside Johannesburg during peak hour traffic. The dead include two female passengers and two drivers, one of whom was still trapped inside the cab of his train the day after the smash. One of the […]

EIGHTY-four prisoners held on charges of participating in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide publicly confessed to their crimes during a Presbyterian church service, official radio reported this week. The suspects confessed to their role in the wave of ethnic violence that swept the country, leaving between 500000 and 800000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus dead. They also […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Wellington | Wednesday TWO apartheid-era security force members, now on parole in New Zealand where they were convicted for ecstasy smuggling, have told a New Zealand court how they were ordered to attack a New Zealander while he was on a drug-buying trip in South Africa. Albertus van Schalkwyk and John Goldsmith, who […]

THE three influential Malawi cabinet ministers axed from President Bakili Muluzi’s executive last week are being probed for $2,5m fraud, authorities confirmed. Malawi director of public prosecutions Fahad Assani said the country’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) was already investigating former education minister Dr Cassim Chilumpha, former labour minister Peter Chupa and former public works minister Brown […]

BATTERED by spiraling petrol prices and predictions of a slow Christmas season for brick-and-mortar businesses, growing numbers of South African retailers are making an early bid for a slice of the expected 100% boom in online transactions predicted by leading e-commerce provider ECnet. The retailers form part of ECnet’s www.cybergifts.co.za website, a secure and easy-to-use […]