MALAWI President Bakili Muluzi has hit back angrily at Britain’s tough remarks over a high-level corruption scandal in Malawi. Britain’s recent remarks come amid allegations that $2m in government contracts to build schools were wrongly awarded to Muluzi supporters, who in turn made campaign contributions for last year’s general elections. Muluzi said he was an […]

PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki has withdrawn from the public debate on the causes of Aids after admitting he had created confusion, but has not backed down from his controversial stance which questions the orthodox scientific view that HIV is the cause of Aids. Mbeki has sided with dissidents who claim other factors, including poverty and malnutrition, […]

REUTERS, AFP and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki will chair a presidential summit in Mozambique to try to salvage a peace deal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – but even as regional leaders gathered in Maputo for Monday’s talks, fresh fighting erupted between the opposing parties in the […]

REBEL attacks in Guinea have killed 360 people since September and many more have been wounded, an official said here at the weekend. Interior Minister Moussa Solano said 15 attacks had been carried out by rebels, destroying hundreds of homes. The minister did not identify the aggressors, but said that they “are not only Guineans.” […]

THE European Union has awarded Zambia a $26m loan facility to help small and medium scale miners, Zambian Finance Minister Katele Kalumba said this week. The loan facility, to be managed by the European Investment Bank, will be available to five Zambian banks and leasing companies, Kalumba said after signing the agreement with the European […]

REUTERS, Johannesburg | Monday THE Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) is considering demutualising as part of a major restructuring exercise to boost liquidity and improve the market’s efficiency. The JSE is the world’s 19th largest exchange, with market capitalisation of some $250bn, but it ranks 34th in liquidity terms. It will now implement further measures from […]

All the people aboard a Saudi plane hijacked to Baghdad were freed on the weekend and the hijackers taken away by Iraqi authorities. The passengers and crew streamed off the Saudi Arabian Airlines plane, hijacked on a Jeddah-London flight, a little over three hours after they landed at Baghdad’s Saddam International Airport. The four hijackers, […]

A NEWSPAPER founded just under a century ago by Mahatma Gandhi in Durban and dormant for 40 years has been relaunched. Gandhi established the “Indian Opinion” in 1903, using it to highlight the injustices of colonialism and white domination and promote his principles of non-violence, truth and welfare for all. Now called “Opinion,” the non-profit […]

ANNA BORZELLO and VINCENT MAYANJA, Kampala | Monday HEALTH authorities in northern Uganda are fighting frantically to curb the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, which has killed at least 33 people in a densely populated town of Gulu, but the government says there is “no cause for alarm.” In the past, outbreaks have hit […]