Steven Mann, Cape Town | Thursday 8.50am. CHINESE President Jiang Zemin wraps up his controversial four-day state visit to South Africa with a tour of Robben Island on Thursday. About 20 pro-Tibet supporters staged a placard protest against Chinese human rights abuses outside the entrance the his hotel when he arrived in Cape Town on […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Wednesday 12.15pm. RICHARD Tate, head of the organisation representing Zimbabwe’s 7700 tobacco growers, rejected as “mischievous” claims they were boycotting Wednesday’s start of annual auctions to blackmail President Robert Mugabe’s government. Abysmal prices of $1.56 a kilogramme for the first bales sold — compared with producers’ break-even price of $2 — […]
THE World Bank has announced approval of a $30-million loan to help Mozambique finance equipment for rebuilding infrastructure in the wake of devastating floods. Heavy rains in Mozambique, which began in early February, have left 640 people dead in the country’s southern provinces and have displaced or stranded 491000, according to the Bank.
NIGERIAN Vice President Atiku Abubakar arrives in South Africa on Wednesday for a five-day official visit. Abubakar will be accompanied by some ministers, including those of agriculture, industry and commerce. Others are President Olusegun Obasanjo’s special adviser on petroleum, and officials from the justice, education, science and solid minerals ministries.Nigerian officials said they hoped the […]
NIGERIA has begun implementing a new revenue sharing formula with its nine oil-producing states by which the latter receive 13% of oil revenues. An official statement published by national newspapers on Tuesday said the government has disbursed a total of 11,9-billion naira ($1,1-billion) to the states for their share of oil revenues for the first […]
SOUTH AFRICAN singer Margaret Singana died in her sleep on Saturday — almost penniless, according to her family. Singa, whose career was at its peak in between the sixties and eighties, starred in the hit musical “Ipi Tombi”, and sang such chart busters as “Hamba Bhekile” and “I Never Loved a Man The Way I […]
THE Malawi army introduced its first women recruits this week after they completed a gruelling eight-month military training course. The 59 women trainees will graduate on Friday. Lieutenant Colonel McLoyd Chidzalo was enthusiastic about the trainees, who were accepted to the college after pressure from women’s rights activists who argued that women in the army […]
AT least 60% of all Mozambicans seeking medical treatment suffer from malaria and an estimated 40% of the country’s hospital beds are occupied by malaria victims. The country’s health minister, Francisco Songane, describing the statistics as “the worst in southern Africa and possibly the world,” on Tuesday said malaria was beginning to have a serious […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Wednesday 5.40pm. CHINA’s internationally criticised human rights record was not raised in talks in Pretoria between President Thabo Mbeki and President Jiang Zemin. Asked by reporters whether the issue had been raised in talks Tuesday between the presidents, the director general in China’s foreign ministry, Zhu Bangzao, said: “Very explicitly, no.” […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Addis Ababa | Wednesday 5.00pm. THE looming famine in southern Ethiopia “symbolises” the many perils threatening the country’s very survival, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said, while admitting the border war with Eritrea might have aggravated the disaster. “The current drought-induced crisis we are facing symbolises in a very painful manner the enormous […]