FORMER Angolan oil minister Joao Landoide has been nominated as executive secretary of the Southern African Development Community, an Angolan government source said late on Tuesday. Kaire Mbuende of Namibia, who had held the post since 1997, stepped down amid charges of incompetence at the 14-country grouping’s summit last Wednesday in the Mozambican capital Maputo. […]

PHILLIP NKOSI, Nelspruit | Wednesday 8.30pm MUNICIPALITIES throughout Mpumalanga face having their prime assets attached by commercial banks after failing to repay loans totalling millions of rands. Local government MEC Fish Mahlalela confirmed on Tuesday that banks such as Sanlam are about to move against at least four towns in the province. He criticised the […]

THE Pretoria High Court on Wednesday ordered that the assets of apartheid chemical and biological warfare expert Wouter Basson may not be seized. Basson challenged an interim order obtained by the Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka to seize assets to the value of R44-million under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act. The court found […]

THE launch of Botswana’s national television station has been delayed until next year because construction is already four months behind schedule. However, Botswana’s first independent commercial radio station Yarona 106,6fm went live on the air on Sunday — three weeks early. Director of Information and Broadcasting Ted Makgekgenene said the 250 million pula project — […]

POLICE in Johannesburg as to press charges against the Congress of South African Students for an “illegal march” on Tuesday that turned violent as student went on the rampage. Inspector Mary Martins-Engelbrecht on Wednesday said about 3000 Cosas students marched in Braamfontein, some of whom went on the rampage and caused damage to property in […]

THE world’s last remaining population of a rare cycad species is under threat in Mpumalanga as local witchdoctors claim the primordial plants can cure HIV/Aids. Five men arrested in January with 50 of the increasingly rare E-cupidus cycad told investigators that the plants had been ordered for a local muti market. The cycads had been […]

THE Judicial Service Commission has shortlisted 35 candidates to be interviewed from October 4 to October 9 for appointments as judges in provincial divisions of the High Court, the Labour Court and the Labour and Competition Appeal Courts. Chief justice Ismail Mahomed, who chairs the JSC, announced in Bloemfontein on Wednesday that a joint meeting […]

A PORT ELIZABETH police constable has been charged with raping two women. He was caught in the act with his second victim in the city centre on Sunday. The alleged rapist, who is attached to the Gelvandale crime investigations division, dragged his first victim off the street, forced her into a police van and raped […]

PUBLIC Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi told thousands of public servants who marched on Parliament on Tuesday afternoon that government will meet them in the bargaining chamber ”within days”. Fraser-Moleketi’s brush-off comes as tens of thousands of public sector workers went on strike and staged nationwide protest marches in an unprecedented showdown between organised […]

NAMIBIAN President Sam Nujoma announced that the state of emergency in the troubled north-eastern Caprivi region will be lifted at midnight on Wednesday. Namibian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Nujoma Tuesday visited the remote northern town of Katima Mulilo, which came under attack from a separatist rebel group on August 2, to announce that the emergency […]