OWN CORRESPONDENT, East London | Sunday AFRICAN National Congress heavyweights, including Deputy President Jacob Zuma, turned the funeral of presidential aide Parks Mankahlana’s into a giant ANC local elections rally, lambasting those who had defected from the ANC or become independents. In front of thousands of mourners at the Sisa Dukashe stadium in Mdantsane, Zuma […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Sunday THE success rate of arresting, prosecuting and convicting criminals in South Africa is not good enough to deter these criminals from making a life out of crime, says KwaZulu-Natal premier Lionel Mtshali. Speaking at the opening of the new C-max prison, Qalakabusha, at Empangeni, in northern KwaZulu-Natal, Mtshali said in […]

LIBYAN leader Muammar Gaddafi has called for Muslim pilgrims to Mecca to “march on al-Quds,” the Arabic name for Jerusalem. “There should be one million or two million pilgrims at Mecca. They must march on al-Quds,” Kadhafi said in an interview with the satellite channel Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC). “Instead of walking around the […]

SOUTH African musician Johnny Clegg has been attacked and robbed of his minibus by three armed men at traffic lights in northwest Johannesburg. Clegg was unhurt in the attack, and the vehicle was recovered an hour later in the township of Alexandra and returned undamaged to him. Clegg, nicknamed the White Zulu, has had a […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Saturday A FORMER agent of the apartheid regime’s shadowy Civil Co-Operation Bureau, known only as Mr T, has revealed bizarre details of how he oversaw the hanging of a baboon foetus from a tree as part of a plot to “bewitch” Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Mr T, whose identity is being concealed […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Saturday AMID growing calls for the head of Minerals and Energy Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the government will decide next week how to act on allegations of a secret R1,5bn deal which has effectively privatised the country’s oil trading operations – and will cost the taxpayer at least R75m. Ministry official Kanyo […]

TWO Dutch tourists were killed and 15 people injured in a collision between a car and minibus near Port Elizabeth. The group of tourists, from countries including Germany and Switzerland, were travelling from a wildlife reserve in a convoy of eight buses when the accident occurred. The injured tourists were hospitalised in Port Elizabeth. – […]

Former President Nelson Mandela will be interviewed by television talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

OFFICIALS from 14 West African countries gathered this week in the Senegalese capital Dakar have pledged to crusade against organised crime, drug trafficking and money laundering, amid fears the crimes could destabilise the region. Finance, interior and justice ministers from the states set up an Intergovernmental Group of Action against Money Laundering (GIABA) charged with […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Saturday WESTERN Cape police have refused to confirm reports that one of the men arrested in connection with an unexploded bomb found outside a busy restaurant in Bellville on Friday was out on bail after he was allegedly involved in a previous bomb attack. They are also tight-lipped as to […]