Own Correspondent

DISGRACED anti-apartheid cleric Allan Boesak phoned top ANC politicians – including transport minister Dullah Omar – and a well-known Cape Town judge using a stolen cellphone from his cell in the Malmesbury prison, where he is serving a fraud sentence. According to weekend newspaper reports, Omar confirmed that he had been telephoned by Boesak from […]

CANADA should compensate South Africa for “looting” the country?s doctors, says the head of the SA Medical Research Council, Malegapuru William Makgoba. Under an international “code of ethics” advocated by Dr Makgoba, rich countries like Canada would be required to pay for every doctor they recruit in South Africa. “It’s a new form of looting […]

DEMOCRATIC Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon has led a chorus of protest calling on President Thabo Mbeki to censure Public Safety Minister Steve Tshwete for a “vitriolic and extreme attack” on the Portuguese community regarding an anti-crime memorandum sent to the President. Leon described Tshwete’s hard-hitting response to the group’s memorandum, handed over after a […]

ENVIRONMENTAL organisation Greenpeace has warned that the Cape of Good Hope could be turned into a ?nuclear highway?, with more than 80 nuclear shipments from Europe to Japan planned in the next 10 years. The warning came as a ship bearing a cargo of deadly plutonium fuel sailed around the Cape coast at the weekend […]

SOUTH African attitudes to online shopping are maturing, with shoppers more prepared to make online buying part of their lifestyles – but this means retailers will have to better gear themselves up to understand the needs of the online consumer. That’s the word from Paddy Gray, director of PQ Africa’s payment gateway ECnet, who says […]

A court recording of former president Nelson Mandela’s last speech before he was sentenced to life imprisonment will on Sunday be released.

DESPITE some pre-speech jitters, South African bonds moved stronger on the back of President Thabo Mbeki’s “nothing new” state-of-the-nation address. At 1220 local time (1020 GMT), the key benchmark government R150 bond was at 11.405% from a previous close of 11.420%. The longer-dated R153 was at 12.04% from a previous close of 12.08%. The currency […]

AIDS in South Africa – which claimed about 200_000 lives in 2000 – and urbanisation have nearly halved the country?s growth rate between 1996 and 2006, according to a new report. The combination of the two factors reduced annual population growth to about 1.35%, said Carl van Aardt of the Bureau of Market Research. Aids […]

AGRICULTURAL unions and South African opposition parties have slammed Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana?s warning to farmers who abuse their workers that they must “adapt or die” as hate speech which could spark more rural killings. Mdladlana made the remark – shown on SABC television – while visiting farms in the Northern Cape to inspect labour […]

GIANT banking group Absa has denied that it owes millions of rands in taxes relating to the Reserve Bank’s controversial R1,5bn lifeboat to Bankorp in 1990. Johannesburg lawyer Peter Soller said that by failing to recover the R1bn in tax owed from Absa, Sars was discriminating against other taxpayers. If necessary, he would challenge this […]

TIENIE Wolmarans, husband of the South African woman sentenced to hang in Botswana for the murder of his first wife, is convinced of her innocence and is starting a hunt to find and convict the man he believes is guilty of the crime. Wolmarans is bitter that the Botswana government seems uninterested in further investigations […]

THE sister of a victim killed in a 1996 Nigerian plane crash that claimed 143 lives has told a human rights panel that the former military ruler Sani Abacha ordered the bombing of the aircraft. An official investigation into the November 7, 1996 crash of the Aviation Development Company (ADC) plane ruled out sabotage at […]

SOUTH African Marietta Bosch’s last chance of escaping the hangman for the murder of her best friend is an appeal for clemency to Botswana President Festus Mogae. Bosch, 50, is back on Death Row in Botswana’s Gaborone Central Prison after the Botswana Court of Appeal upheld her conviction and death sentence for killing Maria Wolmarans. […]

THE health minister of the cholera-ravaged KwaZulu-Natal Province has admitted that the authorities ?never dreamed? the epidemic – which has killed 85 people so far – could become so serious, and warns that it could still be raging by the end of 2002. Zweli Mkhize told the KwaZulu-Natal legislature that with hundreds of new infections […]

THE European Union will exert “all necessary political pressure” to ensure that UN troops are deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and that foreign armies withdraw, EU special envoy Aldo Ajello said after meeting new DRC President Joseph Kabila. The DRC war, which has lasted for two-and-a-half years, involves troops from Angola, Namibia […]

A US lawmaker back from a visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has described the vast central African nation as “a ticking bomb,” calling on President George W Bush to make Africa a top foreign policy priority. “The Congo is a ticking bomb,” Representative Frank Wolf told reporters, noting six African countries […]

LESOTHO, Swaziland and the Transkei have been identified as the prime suppliers of dagga to South Africa?s Rastafarians in an affidavit handed to the Constitutional Court by Rastafarian lawyer Gareth Enver Prince. The Star newspaper reported that Prince, who is fighting for dagga’s legislation, said several townships were also identified as good providers of the […]

A SENIOR DRC official has levelled allegations that a foreign power was behind last week’s assassination of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) president Laurent Kabila, the Togolese president’s office said. DRC envoy Constantin Nono Lutula made the statement while visiting Togo for a meeting with Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema, who is also acting president of […]

VETERANS of Zimbabwe’s liberation war, who last year occupied hundreds of white-owned farms, have threatened to seize companies that support a planned anti-government general strike. War veterans leader Chenjerai Hitler Hunzvi said that if the planned mass action called by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) takes place, the former freedom fighters would invade […]

A SOUTH African woman sentenced to the gallows in Botswana for murdering her best friend before marrying the friend’s husband takes her case to five foreign judges on the Appeals Court this week. Marietta Bosch, who turned 50 on death row last week, will be represented by high-profile British barrister Desmond de Silva, who is […]

FRANCE?S scandal-ridden relationship with Africa is at an end, even if embarrassing hangovers from the post-colonial period remain, France’s overseas development minister has said on the eve of a Franco-African summit. “The Africans know the integration of France’s cooperation activities into the ministry of foreign affairs has been done to turn the page on ‘Francafrique’,” […]

ANGRY at what it sees as an unfair allocation of seats in some local councils, the African National Congress says it wants the new Municipal Structures Act amended because it “dilutes majority rule” and ?entrenches arbitrariness?. KwaZulu-Natal ANC representative S’bu Ndebele told reporters in Durban the party was particularly concerned over the formula used to […]

ZIMBABWEAN Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay has publicly rebuked Robert Mugabe’s government for “harassment” of Zimbabwe’s judiciary, saying the state had a basic misunderstanding of the rule of law. In his customary remarks at the opening of the legal year – his only speech outside the confines of legal cases put before him – the 69-year-old […]

NELSON Mandela’s former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, is trying to patch up her relationship with South African President Thabo Mbeki, while claiming that he had “grievously maligned” her, the Sunday Times reports. The newspaper says that Madikizela-Mandela, the president of the women’s league of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), wrote a “sensational” letter last May […]

A UNITED States-based mini-submarine shipped to South Africa this week to film a shipwreck may be used to survey the rare coelacanth fish, once thought to be extinct. The JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology?s marine fishes curator, Phil Heemstra, said the institute hoped to conduct a survey of the 400-million-year old species of fish. Visuals […]

MEDICAL aid schemes have threatened to delete drugs from the lists of medicines they will cover for members unless pharmaceutical companies pay them substantial kickbacks, according to a report in The Star newspaper. Doctors will also be encouraged to get in on the act, with financial rewards for those who prescribe the drugs on the […]

WHITE South Africans are divided over a proposed declaration apologising for apartheid and the launch of a development and reconciliation fund which organisers say will enable whites to “take responsibility for the past and to redress the legacy of apartheid.” The “declaration of commitment by white South Africans” has drawn broad support, including from national […]

Former South African President Nelson Mandela said this week he was prepared to help Middle East peace efforts if possible.

Shock waves from the Middle-East have now spread to South Africa with violent protests in Pretoria that left two policemen injured – and former president Nelson Mandela has offered to mediate in the crisis.

LAST week’s coup in the Côte d’Ivoire is unacceptable even though the new military leader has promised democratic elections “as soon as possible,” Foreign Minister Nkosazana Zuma said on Friday. However, there was little point in calling for the reinstatement of exiled president Henri Konan Bedie, ousted on December 24, Zuma told reporters after a […]

A MILITARY mutiny in Côte d’Ivoire’s main city Abidjan continued early Friday with troops shooting into the air and overrunning Abidjan international airport. The mutiny erupted on Thursday in the economic capital with rampaging soldiers firing shots and looting in a protest blamed on unpaid wages and complaints about their standard of living. Their representatives […]

Detention-related deaths have increased dramatically despite assurances to the contrary by the Minister of Law and Order, Louis Le Grange.