SUDANESE government planes have bombed two relief centres in the south of the country, killing ”several” people and injuring 32, the main rebel movement said. Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army (SPLA) representative George Garang said the attacks violated a 10-day ceasefire agreed to allow the United Nations Childrens’ Fund to carry out an anti-polio immunisation drive. […]

ARCHBISHOP Desmond Tutu, one of the sharpest critics of apartheid, has been admitted to hospital for further examination following cancer surgery last year. Tutu has made a slow recovery since returning to Cape Town in August from the United States, where he had been treated for prostate cancer. Tutu looked thin and frail in August […]

GRIFFIN SHEA, Harare | Wednesday ZIMBABWEAN authorities have deployed troops in the streets of Harare to help police quell riots in the capital, where residents have taken to the streets and clashed with security forces for two days running to protest soaring food prices. Shops closed, public transport shut down and schools turned students away […]

Own Correspondent, Cape Town | Wednesday A DEFIANT Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has thrown down the gauntlet to “profiteering pharmaceutical companies” by smuggling a cut-price consignment of generic drugs into the country to treat HIV/Aids-related diseases, saying affordable drugs could save thousands of lives. TAC chairman Zackie Achmat said the group has imported 5000 Biozole […]

PEOPLE have taken to barricading themselves into their homes in fear of panthers in the remote northeast of Gabon. In two villages in Mekambo province, “people had taken to barricading themselves inside their houses” following attacks on domestic animals and livestock, the news agency AGP said. The panthers’ unusual conduct has “certain superstitious types believing […]

A NORTHWEST couple convicted of abusing and prostituting their three daughters for as little as R5 over a five-year period will be sentenced in the Pretoria Regional Court on October 30. The 41-year-old woman and the girls’ 31-year-old stepfather were convicted in August of abusing the 19-year-old and 16-year-old daughters, and of being party to […]

NIGERIAN authorities have ordered troops onto the streets of Lagos to restore order after three days of ethnic violence left more than 100 dead. Thousands of terrified residents sought protection in police and army barracks as Yoruba youths hunted down Hausa rivals in the worst ethnic violence to shake the city in almost a year. […]

REUTERS AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Abuja | Wednesday NIGERIAN President Olusegun Obasanjo has pledged his government’s support to improve business confidence in the oil-producing country at the urging of industry leaders. “We have to improve confidence. I agree absolutely with that,” Obasanjo told the concluding session of this year’s Nigerian Economic Summit. Nigeria’s industry leaders and […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednessday A SOUTH African group of grappa distillers is spearheading an alliance to strike back at the European Union’s (EU) move to secure Italy’s position as the world’s only producer of “real” grappa. The SA Grappa and Distillation Association, which represents three distillers, wants all producers outside the EU to […]