LEGISLATORS from northern Nigeria are to visit three Middle Eastern countries to study implementation of the strict Islamic code. All 40 lawmakers from the assembly in Kano State will leave for a two-week fact-finding trip to Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The visit is to prepare for the introduction of Islamic law, Sharia, in Kano […]

THE Nigerian government has approved the establishment of a new bank to help the country’s struggling agricultural sector. The Agricultural Cooperative and Rural Development Bank, formed by the merger of three existing agencies, will help the sector to expand, said Agriculture Minister Hassan Adamu. The minister did not set out how the bank would work […]

TRADITIONAL leaders have expressed hope that President Thabo Mbeki will find an interim solution to their concerns to avoid conflict with municipalities after the local government elections on 5 December. The government and traditional leaders have been at loggerheads on the new municipality boundaries, which the chiefs say encroach on their powers. The dispute resulted […]

CHINA has won the support of African allies against linking international economic and political ties to human rights issues at the first Forum of Sino-African Cooperation in Beijing. “The politicisation of human rights and the imposition of human rights conditions on economic assisstance should be vigorously opposed as they constitute a violation of human rights,” […]

THE African National Congress is to announce which senior party leaders it would like redeployed as mayors of the country’s main cities, but the list is said not to include cabinet ministers. ANC Western Cape MPL Lynn Brown has been tipped for Cape Town, Port Elizabeth’s current mayor Nceba Faku is expected to hold on […]

SUSAN NJANJI, Harare | Thurssday ZIMBABWE’S blanket amnesty for politically motivated crimes committed before this year’s parliamentary elections is a green light for political violence in the run-up to presidential elections, analysts say. President Robert Mugabe’s order, issued last week, does not cover serious crimes such as murder and rape, but critics are already warning […]

TWO trains crashed head-on in remote western Zimbabwe, killing 15 people and injuring at least 20 others. Police said the dead were mostly on a passenger train headed to Victoria Falls from the western provincial capital of Bulawayo, which collided with a freight train headed south on the boundary of the Hwange nature preserve, the […]

A FURTHER 115 cases of cholera were reported in KwaZulu-Natal this week and a total of 22 deaths have been recorded since the outbreak of the disease. Provincial health spokesman Roz Jordan said 62 of the cases were reported in Eshowe and 53 in Ngwelezane, pushing the number of cases reported since the outbreak in […]

THREE Commando members who allegedly forced a Northern Province teenager to eat his faeces appeared in the Potgietersrus court this week and were granted bail of R1000 each. Chrstiaan Jacobus Human, Gert Johannes Pretorius and Hermanus Johannes Nel, were not asked to plead on charges of assault with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm. The […]

SOUTH Africa’s Sekunjalo Investment Holdings is among several groups interested in acquiring the Health & Racquet fitness club chain of LeisureNet, Business Report newspaper said. The newspaper, quoting Sekunjalo Chief Executive Iqbal Surv, said the black empowerment group, had already received approaches from possible domestic and offshore backers interested in funding the buy. Sekunjalo held […]