A SECOND decomposing body has been found in bushes where a man was caught cooking a human liver and thumb over a fire near Hazyview in Mpumalanga. A team of 40 people and police sniffer dogs found the body in a donga, 30m from where the first body was found in a shallow grave near […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, East London | Thursday EASTERN Cape premier Makhenkesi Stofile has vetoed a disciplinary committee’s axing of the province’s agriculture and land affairs department head, instead appointing him to run the transport department. Zola Gebeda was suspended in March and was subsequently found guilty by a disciplinary committee on 16 counts relating to administrative […]

NIGERIA plans to spend 50bn naira (around $42m) next year to boost its epileptic power supply system, Power and Steel Minister Olusegun Agagu has said. The money will be used to improve generating, transmission and distribution capacity of the inefficient state-run electricity company NEPA, the minister said this week. He said 30 billion naira was […]

HOBBS GAMA, Blantyre | Thursday MALAWI President Bakili Muluzi unexpectedly fired his entire 33 member cabinet on Thursday morning amidst growing corruption and financial mismanagement charges. President Muluzi’s office announced on State radio that all executive government matters would be handled directly by the presidency until a new cabinet is appointed. Office of the President […]

MALAWI’S telecommunications parastatal, Malawi Telecommunications Limited (MTL), this week launched an ambitious five-year strategic plan to triple the number of fixed-line telephones in the country in an apparent attempt to beat off competition from mobile and cellular telephone networks. MTL chief executive Emmanuel Mahuka said that the plan would include upgrading the country’s existing 45 […]

GOLD fever is set to grip South Africa’s most famous historical mining town next week when thousands of gold panners gather in Pilgrim’s Rest to battle it out at the annual National Gold Panning Championships. Mpumalanga Tourism Authority (MTA) spokesman Norman Madzhiga said the annual championships on November 11 had attracted 120 ‘professional’ entries, with […]

FORMER Swazi Prime Minister Prince Mbilini Dlamini, who was demoted after a spate of anti-government demonstrations in the mid-nineties, has bounced back into politics as an adviser to King Mswati III. Dlamini was appointed Prime Minister in 1993, and his tenure was marked by political unrest as pro-democracy activists staged demonstrations to push for political […]

PHILLIP NKOSI and JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Thursday THE much-delayed disciplinary hearing into Mpumalanga’s suspended parks board chief, Alan Gray, wrapped up testimony this week after four days of legal argument. Gray, who was suspended on 20 internal misconduct and alleged fraud charges in September 1998, will however only learn his fate on November 23 […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Thursday TWO foreign ombudsmen attending a conference in Durban have been robbed at knifepoint by gangs of brazen teenage muggers in two separate incidents – with one being bitten by his young assailants when he resisted. Belgian ombudsman Herman Wuyts said he had a tetanus injection after being bitten by one […]

A BRITISH private firm, Crown Agents, caught a customs officer red-handed as he was taking a a bribe in what it called “the most flagrant act of corruption” since it took over the management of the Mozambican customs service about three years ago. The company said revenue collection had improved since Crown Agents started cracking […]