Johannesburg | Monday THE price of all grades of petrol will increase by 12 cents a litre from Wednesday, the Department of Minerals and Energy said on Monday. In Gauteng motorists will now pay R3,75 per litre while those living at the coast will pay R3,64 per litre. Diesel will increase by four cents per […]

JOINT strike action by the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) and the Professional Educators Union (PEU) is looming should the current wage negotiations with government fail, SABC television news reported on Monday. The PEU announced on Monday the possibility of joint lobbying by the two unions for a 7,5 to a 9,9% salary increase […]

Washington | Saturday AFGHAN forces captured three US “special forces” troops inside Afghanistan, a Gulf television report said on Saturday, as Washington won UN support for action against state sponsors of terrorism. Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television reported that three US soldiers and two US citizens of Afghan origin had been caught near the Iranian border carrying […]

HUNDREDS of thousands of people in central Mozambique, devastated by floods, face a serious threat of starvation and the situation is expected to worsen in coming months, the government said on Friday. “In a recent tour of that region we identified pockets of hunger involving about 350 000 people,” said National Disaster Management Institute (INGC) […]

AT least three people died when a Ukrainian ship carrying Sri Lankans seeking work in Europe caught fire and sank near the entrance to the Suez Canal, Egyptian port authorities said on Wednesday. Nine people were also reported missing among the 83 who were aboard the Galak which caught fire while loading provisions at the […]

SOUTH African former archbishop Desmond Tutu is due to take up a posting at Harvard University in the United States where he will teach theology. The Johannesburg-based newspaper The Star quoted Michael Duga, a former official in the Clinton administration, as saying Tutu, archbishop of Cape Town until 1995, will leave for Harvard “very soon”. […]

NIGER police have arrested two Muslim priests for sending a letter to the US embassy demanding that Washington change its foreign policy, a source said on Thursday. Sheikh Souleymane Imam Younouss (75) and 40-year-old Elhadj Boubacar Issa were arrested on Wednesday, the source said. Younouss is president of the Association for Islamic Culture and Education […]

A VENGEFUL Malawian woman has been found guilty of rubbing pepper into the private parts of her husband’s alleged 15-year-old girlfriend and repeatedly writing the word ‘prostitute’ over her body with nail polish. Constance Kamundi (26) was sentenced to two years of hard labour by a magistrate’s court in the lakeshore district of Mangochi on […]

A DRUNK man who thought Good Samaritans were giving him a lift home on Wednesday night was instead beaten up, locked in the car boot and then dumped in the veld about 40km away. Three men offered a lift to Nehemia Silinda of Garelanani village in Bushbuckridge at about 9pm, after he had been drinking […]

FRANCOIS-XAVIER HARISPE, Islamabad | Sunday THEY flooded in with hopes of scoops from Afghanistan, got stuck behind closed borders in Pakistan and their numbers have reached such a critical mass that the dateline joke is of “Journalistan.” Since the start of the current crisis surrounding Afghanistan, the Pakistan authorities have registered 450 newly arrived journalists […]