MFANA, the dagga-growing official who works for the Justice Department, highlights the fact that the police are waging an expensive – but losing – battle against the country’s most tenacious industry. Since 1928, the cultivation and use of cannabis has been a criminal offence in South Africa. The legislation was toughened in 1971 when the […]
FRIDAY, 1.30PM: SOUTH AFRICA’S John Bland leads the Senior British Open after the first round on Wednesday at Royal Portush in Northern Ireland. Bland fired a six-under-par 66 to take the lead. “I played good, drove beautifully, but I’m just happy to be playing,” he said. Bland is two strokes ahead of compatriot Gary Player, […]
Chris McGreal in Bukavu, Congo, uncovers new evidence of genocide as mass graves are unearthed around the country SIX villagers led the way up the narrow path off the main road about 15km from Bukavu, on the far-eastern border of the former Zaire. One carried a spade. He knew where he was headed, but the […]
FRIDAY, 8.30AM INVESTIGATORS into the case of army chemical warfare director Brigadier Wouter Basson have reopened investigations into the mysterious 1987 crash of the SAA Boeing 747 jet Helderberg, in which all 159 people aboard perished. An inquiry into the crash ruled out a bomb or explosive device as the cause, but strange aspects of […]
FRIDAY, 3.30PM The special police investigation team probing this week’s assassination of five African National Congress members, including two newly elected councillors, in Richmond in KwaZulu-Natal, is looking for two Gauteng policemen and one Patrick Skhumbuzo Ndlovu, alias Bob, who they believe can assist with the investigation. Head of the special investigation team Director Bushie […]
NATAL SERIAL KILLER POLICE have discovered 18 bodies buried in shallow graves in Phoenix, north of Durban. Five bodies were discovered yesterday, one of which appeared to be a young black women probably murdered this week. Another three bodies were discovered at a nearby cemetery on Monday. Police have warned that the killer, who preys […]
In her letters – auctioned this month by Sotheby’s – the late Patricia Highsmith is revealed as a tough, sometimes bigoted woman, writes Sarah Boseley CRIME novelist Patricia Highsmith was a semi-recluse from about 1970. She was very private in her Swiss home, having settled in Europe, which loved her amoral heroes whose escape from […]
Lucy Jones DOCTORS in Baley, a small gold mining town in the Russian far eastern region of Chita, had long been puzzled by the high incidence of babies born without limbs, bald children and adults with abnormally big heads. They guessed such deformities might be related to the nameless mine, located on Baley’s outskirts, where […]
paternity test Anthony Kunda in Lusaka THE Zambian Supreme Court has rejected an application to have President Frederick Chiluba subjected to a DNA test to prove conclusively whether a Congolese national, Luka Chabala Kafupi, is his biological father – thus making him ineligible to be state president. The application, by petitioners representing opposition parties, was […]
Joe Seremane, whose brother was killed by the ANC in the infamous Quatro camp, is determined to discover the truth behind his murder. Peta Thornycroft reports AN African National Congress leader accused of torturing the brother of chief land claims commissioner Joe Seremane in the infamous Quatro detention camp has been identified as Gabriel Mthunzi […]