THE government is securing the release and return of 14 South African fishermen detained on their ship in a Moroccan port for over a month for alleged illegal fishing. “The Department of Foreign Affairs, through its embassy in Rabat, is assisting with arrangements for the return of the seamen,” the foreign and transport departments said. […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Gabarone | Thursday 6.00pm THE Southern African Development Community said on Thursday that it will back a bid by four members states to seek permission from world trade authority Cites to sell off stockpiles of ivory. The 14-nation SADC will support the requests of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, the group’s executive […]

Insurer Sanlam said on Tuesday that it has signed an agreement with Australia’s Macquarie Bank to jointly set up a firm to sell financial services to wealthy individuals in South Africa. “The new company will offer a technology driven range of innovative financial solutions and products, targeting high net worth investors,” the head of the […]

SOME 175 new cases of Trypanosomiasis – commonly known as sleeping sickness – were diagnosed in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s western Bas-Congo province last year. According to the chief medical officer at the disease’s control office in Kinshasa, 152050 people had been checked for the disease which is spread by the tsetse fly. The […]

THE ex-Speaker of Swaziland’s Parliament is suing the government after he resigned after stealing cow dung from the king’s kraal. Mgabhi Dlamini quit on Wednesday after a motion to remove him failed narrowly to secure the necessary two-thirds majority in the House. He was, however, barred from Parliament for a month on the king’s orders. […]

AUTHORITIES in Liberia closed down the independent Star Radio and suspended broadcast by the Catholic-run Radio Veritas, accusing them of abusing press freedom and freedom of speech on Wednesday. A government statement broadcast on President Charles Taylor’s private radio station blamed “security threats created by agents and provocateurs (sic) using the news media to abuse […]

POLICE have launched a search for a woman who allegedly cut off her boyfriend’s penis during an argument, the Sowetan newspaper reported on Thursday. Vusimuzi Mkanise Mkhize, hospitalised after the attack and reduced to using a urine sack to pass water, told the newspaper that they had been in bed when the fight started. Neither […]

ANDRIES Blaauw will replace Fanna Lambert at loosehead prop and Christo Smit makes way for Nico de Wet at right wing in the Namibian team that plays Griquas in a Vodacom Cup match in Windhoek on Saturday. Blaauw and De Wet were both substitutes in the Namibian side that were hammered 70-7 by North West […]

Justin Arenstein The mystery man behind Mpumalanga’s R1,3- billion promissory note deal, international fugitive Moshe Regenstreich, has been linked to illegal trade in chemical weapons, including deadly mustard and sarin nerve gas. Regenstreich, also known by his Israeli family name of Regev, was blacklisted by the United States Congress and State Department in 1995 after […]

Ebrahim Harvey CROSSFIRE The South African situation is no longer simply black and white. Since 1994 our situation has acquired a much more complex and dynamic character. Yet, unfortunately, a narrow, inward-looking, simplistic and unscientific approach manifested itself at last week’s South African Human Rights Commission (HRC) inquiry into racism in the media. As the […]