PETER CUNLIFFE-JONES, Abuja | Monday THE Nigerian equivalent of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission this week launches 12 weeks of public hearings probing human rights abuses in Nigeria dating back to the first military coup in 1966. The commission, which was set up last year, has received over 10000 complaints of rights violations. Around […]

SCIENTISTS have successfully tested a natural insecticide against grasshoppers and locusts in Niger. The non-chemical insecticide, called Green Muscle, has no secondary effect on humans or animals, and kills only locusts and grasshoppers – longtime pests for farmers in Africa and elsewhere. It can be applied just once a season, and costs only one third […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday SOUTH Africa’s opposition Democratic Alliance has kicked off its campaign for the December local elections with a promise to provide free anti-Aids drugs in wards its members win. DA leader Tony Leon told a 500-strong crowd in Soweto, south of Johannesburg, the party would give anti-retrovirals to HIV-positive pregnant women […]

A FOUR-year-old girl who survived a hand grenade blast in Whittlesea, south of Queenstown, is to be discharged from the Hewu hospital soon. Two cousins, both aged 10, were killed in the explosion. The two boys were visiting their grandparents when they saw the grenade hanging in a neighbour’s tree. The boys boys are believed […]

AUSTRALIA’S Aquarius Platinum is to proceed with an offer to acquire South Africa’s Kroondal Platinum following a revision of the exchange ratio originally offered. ”Accordingly, a re-assessment of the exchange ratio has resulted in a revised offer of 1.2 Aquarius ordinary shares for every one KPM ordinary share,” the companies said in a joint statement. […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Monday DISGRACED former anti-apartheid activist Dr Alan Boesak, jailed earlier this year for squirrelling away R1.3m of donor funds, could be out on parole by next June following a Correction Services Department decision to slash ten months off his sentence. Boesak started his 3-year sentence on May 15 this year […]

ALAN RAYBOULD, Abidjan | Monday SUPPORTERS of Socialist Laurent Gbagbo are increasingly confident that he has won Ivory Coast’s presidential election, seeing off army ruler General Robert Guei to end 10 months of military rule. Gbagbo, of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), and Guei were the only serious runners in a field of five after […]

ERITREAN and Ethiopian foreign ministers are due to meet in Algiers this week for progress talks on the peace pact that ended a two-year border war in June. Eritrean Foreign Minister Ali Said Abdella said representatives of Algeria, the United States, the European Union and some OAU governments were expected to attend. The talks are […]

CAMEROONIAN gendarmes have raided Nigerian villages, killing an unspecified number of people in a border area disputed by the two countries, Nigerian newspapers reported. The alleged invasion took place about a week ago in the Boki area of southeastern Cross River State. Border clashes there have not been as frequent as in the Bakassi Peninsula, […]

FIERCE fighting is raging between the Congolese army, supported by their allies, and Rwandan troops backed by rebel forces in Katanga province in southeastern Congo, military sources in Kigali said at the weekend. Rebel sources said between 6 000 and 8 000 Congolese government troops and their allies were involved in the offensive, backed by […]