ZIMBABWE’S commercial farmers have welcomed the eviction of war veterans from five white-owned farms and urged President Robert Mugabe to restore order on hundreds of other occupied farms. Armed police this week destroyed shacks and evicted hundreds of black liberation war veterans and their supporters from five farms outside the capital Harare, police said. Government […]

Ongeri John, Dar es Salaam | Tuesday THE opposition Civic United Front (CUF), which lost presidential elections on the semi-autonomous islands of Zanzibar by 0,4% in 1995, has criticised police for allegedly siding with the ruling party in a series of public clashes that has left hundreds imprisoned and scores in hospital. CUF presidential candidate […]

STEVEN MANN, Cape Town | Tuesday IT could take up to 20 years before the government realises its goal of providing all South Africans with access to clean water, Water Affairs Minister Ronnie Kasrils has admitted. Kasrils told a media briefing in Parliament while running water had been laid on for six million South Africans […]

CONCERNS still remain about the reliability of local transport, criminal activity at bus stops and ongoing intimidation of commuters in Khayelitsha outside Cape Town, where turf wars between taxi operators and bus companies claimed several lives earlier this year. This is in spite of relative calm having returned to the township, according to a report […]

THE man known as the “saloon killer”, Velaphi Ndlangamandla, who killed 19 people in a five-month reign of terror in Mpumalanga in 1998, has been sentenced to 137 years’ imprisonment. Ndlangamandla, 34, was convicted of 19 murder charges, nine of attempted murder, six robbery charges, one attempted robbery charge, five housebreaking charges (three of housebreaking […]

ZIMBABWE President Robert Mugabe has made a rare concession on his plan to confiscate farms for redistribution to landless blacks, telling one of the country’s biggest corporate landowners, Anglo American, that it could keep sugar estate and cattle ranches that had originally been listed for confiscation. A powerful South African-based mining conglomerate, Anglo American owns […]

AN Egyptian mother has been arrested for tying her mentally unstable son in his bed and leaving him to die, police said. Fawqiya Mahmud Ismail tied her 19-year-old son Hazim Taha Ibrahim to his bed by his arms and legs after he had a screaming fit and caused a disturbance. Ibrahim, an arts student in […]

AN IRAQI delegation has left for South Africa to examine cooperation plans to rebuild Iraq’s electricity sector. Delegation chief Saleh Yussef Qazir, who heads up the Iraqi electricity office, said he would talk with South African electricity officials about “the basis for cooperation over production and distribution of electric energy.” He said the talks would […]

GOVERNMENT ministers and industry leaders from diamond producing and trading countries are meeting in Pretoria to fine-tune agreements banning the sale of diamonds used to finance warfare in Africa. The industry, responding to pressure from human rights movements, established the World Diamond Council in July at a meeting in Antwerp, Belgium. It proposed a system […]

OWN CORRESPONDENTand REUTERS, Johannesburg | Tuesday THE Building Industries Federation of South Africa (BIFSA) has revised down the sector’s growth forecast this year because of crime, the weak rand and recent political upheaval in Zimbabwe. Executive Director Ian Robinson said in his annual report that “the single most negative domestic influence on the fortunes of […]