A SOUTH African diamond miner has committed suicide by putting a stick of dynamite in his mouth and lighting it with a match. Police said Mogakalodi Thetswe, 30, killed himself in his bedroom at his parents’ house in Ganyesa in the North West province. The family thought they heard a gunshot and rushed to the […]

SOMALI Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galaydh has announced the formation of his government, the first in the strife-torn Horn of Africa country for nearly a decade. The cabinet consists of 25 ministers drawn from different clans and sub-clans. Galaydh’s authority has not been recognised by the warlords who have carved up the country, which has […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pietermaritzburg | Sunday A KWAZULU-Natal farmer has been caught breaking a ban on moving milk in a foot-and-mouth disease quarantine zone in Camperdown, where an outbreak of the disease flared last month. The farmer has been charged with endangering the province’s foot-and-mouth disease containment programme and will appear in court next week, the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday THOUSANDS of South African Communist Party (SACP) supporters have taken to the streets of South Africa’s major cities to demand easier access to bank loans for the country’s poor as part of its Red October campaign – and are threatening more action should the banks refuse. In Johannesburg some 5000 […]

AT least 18 students from the University of Swaziland have been injured in a clash with riot police near the palace of King Mswati III. Security officials said about 1 000 students had clashed with police when they tried to march on the Lozitha Palace to protest the eviction of villagers who had refused to […]

A FRENCH court has ruled that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi can be prosecuted in France for the bombing of a French airliner over Niger in 1989 in which 170 people died, judicial sources said. The decision, taken on an appeal against a previous ruling to prosecute him, rejected the defence argument that Gaddafi enjoyed immunity […]

SWIFT action to fight the Ebola outbreak in Uganda has resulted in a much lower mortality rate than earlier cases of the deadly virus, and raised hopes of a speedy drop-off in infections, health experts said. The hemorrhagic fever caused by the virus usually kills between 50 and 90% of the people it infects, but […]

Local artists are looking to surgery as a means of creation Michelle Matthews It is tempting to use the clich’ “cutting edge”, but surgery as art is at least a decade old. French artist Orlan is its most famous proponent, having undergone 10 cosmetic operations in her expression of carnal art. In her latest she […]