Own Correspondent

ZIMBABWE?S Roman Catholic bishops have lashed out at President Robert Mugabe’s government, and denounced the 15-month campaign of violence led by liberation war veterans loyal to him. The pastoral letter, which will be distributed to every Catholic church, school and institution in Zimbabwe, is the harshest criticism yet of Mugabe’s regime from any of the […]

THE African National Congress has backtracked and admitted that Safety and Security Minister Steve Tshwete damaged South Africa’s image by naming three prominent party members as allegedly plotting to overthrow President Thabo Mbeki. Tshwete is to be carpeted before Parliament?s safety and security committee today, where he is expected to justify why he ordered a […]

SOUTH Africa’s most powerful trade union federation on Tuesday warned that they were planning a nationwide strike against privatisation, to take place in the next four months. Speaking at a May Day rally in Durban, Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), told workers that Cosatu intended to protest […]

THE Zimbabwe government has described as “uncorroborated” a report by an international panel of high-ranking lawyers who said that democracy and the rule of law in the country were “in the gravest peril.” In the report produced for the International Bar Association (IBA), the laywers said the government of President Robert Mugabe was deeply implicated […]

TONY Yengeni, chief whip of the ANC in Parliament, was apparently six weeks ago ordered by the investigation teams into alleged irregularities in the R43bn arms deal to present evidence about certain “assets” that could be connected to the transactions, says Afrikaans daily Beeld. Yengeni’s lawyer apparently said his schedule would only permit this to […]

PAN Africanist Congress President Dr Stanley Mogoba says a poverty eradication tax is critical for all South Africans to be comfortable, calling poverty a time bomb which “might blow up in our faces sooner rather than later.” In his opening address at the party’s annual conference at Vista University in Bloemfontein, he said urged the […]

A PIONEERING deal between South Africa’s National Botanical Institute (NBI) and a US horticultural company which ?sells off the country?s botanical heritage? will be scrutinised by the environmental department. Environmental Affairs and Tourism Director General Crispian Olver said the department’s legal advisers would re-examine the deal, which allows Ball Horticultural Company of Chicago, Illinois, access […]

PUBLIC Protector Selby Baqwa, Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka, Judge Fikile Bam of the Constitutional Court and various senior members of the ANC were privy to a secret meeting at which ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni admitted that he had money in his bank which he could not account for, according to a report […]

SA COMMUNIST Party (SACP) general secretary Blade Nzimande has called for a massive consumer boycott of goods and services from farmers, shopkeepers and suppliers found to be racist. Nzimande was speaking at a national rally in Ermelo, Mpumalanga marking the start of the Chris Hani National Memorial Week. Hani, one of SA?s top leaders was […]

JUSTICE Minister Penuell Maduna has lashed graft-busting Judge Willem Heath for suggesting the government is not dedicated to fighting corruption, saying his remarks sounded similar to those uttered by the opposition. Maduna said he hoped the judicial service commission would take note of the remarks, adding that a statement of this nature not only discouraged […]

SLAUGHTERED by colonists, ruthlessly oppressed by South Africa’s apartheid regime and marginalised under the country’s young democracy, South Africa’s indigenous people, once derisively known as Bushmen and Hottentots, say they have had enough. The leaders of almost all the country’s major indigenous groups gathered at a conference that ended Sunday to demand redress for past […]

ENVIRONMENTALISTS have reacted with fury and dismay to a White House decision not to back the Kyoto Protocol on global warming – a deal previously agreed by the Clinton administration. “The world is tottering on the brink of climate disaster,” Friends of the Earth Europe said in a statement, in which it accused President George […]

SOUTH Africa’s largest trade union body, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), has pooh-poohed official statistics which suggest that the unemployment rate stands at 22.5% – saying the real figure is closer to 40%. The government’s statistics service, Statistics SA (Stats SA), said about one in five members of the workforce were without […]

FORMER apartheid army general and politician Constand Viljoen has revealed how close South Africa came to civil war in 1994 shortly before the country’s first all-race elections, when he had 50_000 armed men ready to fight the African National Congress (ANC). In an interview published in Johannesburg’s Sunday Independent, Viljoen said the mobilisation of right-wing […]

THE office of African National Congress Chief Whip Tony Yengeni says a statement might be issued on Sunday, following allegations that he mysteriously acquired a luxury vehicle, which was ordered as a “staff vehicle” by a company linked to the R43bn arms deal. His representative Dennis Cruywagen said Yengeni was in Johannesburg and wanted to […]

ALTHOUGH the political violence which threatened to tear South Africa apart a few years ago is on the decline, the country remains plagued by other forms of violence, says the SA Institute of Race Relations. This is evident from the 2000/01 South Africa Survey, to be released this week. Terence Corrigan, one of the writers […]

NAMIBIA?S President Sam Nujoma has called on police to arrest, deport and imprison gays and lesbians, saying homosexual behaviour was not permitted despite the country’s liberal constitution. “The Republic of Namibia does not allow homosexuality, lesbianism here. Police are ordered to arrest you, and deport you and imprison you,” Nujoma told students in a speech […]

THE South African government says it turned down an offer of one million free HIV test kits because, among other reasons, the tests could create confusion among health personnel trained in another method of HIV testing. The US drug company Guardian Scientific Africa Incorporated was reportedly stunned that the government had rejected its offer of […]

FINANCIAL services group Fedsure unveiled surprisingly poor annual results this week, casting a shadow over prospects for Investec bank, which is buying most of its business. Fedsure said its attributable earnings for the year ended December 31 leaped to R2.75bn ($350m) from R617m. This included a one-time profit of R4.01bn from the R4.6bn sale of […]

HUMAN rights abuses, especially racism and xenophobia, are on the increase worldwide, says UN human rights chief Mary Robinson, who attacks Europe for becoming a “fortress”. Globalisation has made the world smaller but discrimination has increased, Robinson said at a luncheon attended by senior government officials, including Sipho Pityana, South Africa’s director general of foreign […]

THE British-based charity Christian Aid has launched damning allegations of atrocities by Sudanese government forces and sponsored militias, who they say are mounting a systematic ?scorched earth? strategy in and around the oilfields where foreign companies operate. Christian Aid called on oil companies to suspend operations, saying tens of thousands of civilians have been killed […]

THE Mpumalanga farmer who has become the first person in the country to have his land seized for redistribution has vowed to exhaust all legal avenues in fighting the government’s attempts to expropriate his land. Willem Pretorius, who has been notified that he must either reach a settlement with government on the price of 1 […]

THE World Health Organisation (WHO) has slammed major tobacco companies for continuing to market cigarettes to the world’s youth. Speaking at an All Africa meeting on tobacco control in Pretoria, Derek Yach, WHO’s executive director for noncommunicable diseases and mental health, said companies regularly hired market researchers to ask adolescents about their buying and leisure […]

A SOUTH African-born Presbyterian missionary who accused the Zimbabwean government of involvement in the killings of two white parishioners has left the country after authorities revoked his permit to work in the country and ordered his deportation. The Rev Paul Andrianatos entered South Africa safely after a campaign of threats and intimidation from state security […]

MOZAMBIQUE?S disastrous floods are an alarm call on climate change, the environment group Greenpeace said this week as it urged European countries to take the lead in ratifying the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. “The current extraordinary and tragic flood in Mozambique, only one year after the last such ‘unusual’ event in that country, demonstrates […]

AIDS activists in South Africa have welcomed US drug giant Merck’s offer to slash the price of its Aids drug treatments in developing countries – but say the company has still not gone far enough. Merck announced this week it would reduce the price for Crixivan (indinavir sulfate) to $600 per year and Stocrin (efavirenz) […]

NAMIBIA, an ally of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is to follow the lead of Uganda and Rwanda and begin withdrawing its troops from the country, says a foreign ministry source. “The boys are coming back,” said the official, but gave no indication of when Namibian soldiers could be expected to withdraw from the […]

A DOCTOR who served under Dr Wouter Basson testified in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday that the apartheid chemical warfare expert injected a suspected African National Congress (ANC) member during an interrogation. Basson has denied using chemicals during an interrogation. However Dr Phil Meyer, who was in charge of the casualty department at 1 […]

A GROUP of dissident Algerian soldiers claims that 47 Algerian officers were killed in military barracks south of Algiers at the weekend for refusing to “participate in crimes against civilians.” The Algerian Movement for Free Officers (MAOL) said the officers were killed on Sunday at the Boughar barracks, 150km south of Algiers. The group, which […]

PRESIDENT Jose Eduardo dos Santos has declared his support for Pierre Falcone, the man accused by the French authorities of having organised illegal arms shipments to Angola, saying the Frenchman had helped “safeguard democracy” in the war-torn southern African country. Dos Santos, speaking for the first time on the controversial arms deal in which Jean-Christophe […]

WOMEN and children are increasingly turning to drug abuse in Africa, where the scourge is fuelled by war, poverty and crime, according to a UN report issued this week. Drug abuse is on the rise across the continent, as illicit substances become cheaper and cheaper in a region which has traditionally served as a transit […]

LOW salaries and large-scale bribery of traffic officials are reportedly among the main reasons for a breakdown in law enactment and road behaviour in South Africa, according to an Automobile Association (AA) study reported in the Beeld newspaper. The report says that bribery has become such an entrenched practice that it would only be rooted […]