COUNSEL for germ warfare expert Dr Wouter Basson has described the state’s case regarding murder charges against his client as “chaotic” as far as facts were concerned. Advocate Jaap Cilliers asked Judge Willie Hartzenberg to discharge Basson on more than 30 murder-related charges, saying that the state’s case was not strong enough for a conviction. […]
THE head of the UN World Health Organisation Gro Harlem Brundtland has launched a mental health awareness campaign with a call for an end to discrimination against people with psychological illnesses. More than 400 million people around the world are estimated to suffer from some kind mental or neurological disorder at any given time, Brundtland […]
SUDAN’S deputy defense minister, 13 high-ranking military officers and a corporal were killed when their plane crashed in bad weather at an airport in southern Sudan, official sources said. The crash was a blow to the Islamist government because, diplomats say, the deputy defense minister, Colonel Ibrahim Shams Eddin, spent most of his time in […]
Own Correspondent, Pietersburg | Thursday THE teenager allegedly killed on a Dendron farm by a group of Northern Province rugby players, and later dumped in a dam almost 200km away, was beaten to death and not shot as was earlier believed. Police said the post mortem on Tshepo Matloga showed he died of a fractured […]
A LAGOS court will Thursday hear a suit filed by a Nigerian nurse against her employers who sacked her allegedly after she tested positive for HIV in 1995, a court official said. Employers of Georgiana Ahamefule, then pregnant, allegedly tested her for the disease “without her knowledge or consent. A Lagos high court judge refused […]
DARREN SCHUETTLER, Johannesburg | Thursday THE South African government may consider legislation to speed up affirmative action and black empowerment in the country’s white-dominated mining industry, a senior mines ministry official said this week. Some analysts and labour leaders say black empowerment in South Africa has stalled and only a well-defined government programme can save […]
KENYAN President Daniel arap Moi has fired the governor of the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), Micah Cheserem, replacing him with a relatively unknown former central bank official. Cheserem, a former top accountant with the British conglomerate, Unilever, still had three months of his second four-year contract to serve as the country’s chief banker, when […]
KENYAN President Daniel arap Moi has ordered all passenger vehicles to use manifests and timetables in the wake of a weekend bus accident here that left at least 35 dead. “I decree that the police must double the intensity of vehicle inspections to reduce carnage on the roads,” Moi said. It is not yet known […]
The first year of married life with heartthrob Brad Pitt has been the "hardest year of my life", and full of both intense introspection and happiness, actress Jennifer Aniston told the May issue of <i>Vanity Fair</i>.
<i>Traffic’s</i> Oscar says something tragic and pathetic about Washington’s war on drugs.
A 60-year-old priest and a churchgoer drowned during a night-time baptism ceremony at a disused quarry in Centurion, south of Pretoria. Police said about seven members of the Mamelodi Holy Sprit Church of Zion went to the Pierre van Ryneveld quarry around 8.30pm. All seven entered the water but the priest, a man and a […]
SOUTH Africa’s Communications Ministry says its top priority is to ensure the telecoms regulator ICASA is properly funded so it can effectively police the fast-growing sector. Communications Director-General Andile Ngcaba told a parliamentary committee meeting the ministry was in talks with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) and the national treasury on a […]
SIERRA Leonean refugees fleeing intensified fighting in Guinea are being raped, killed and abducted by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels despite a promise of “safe passage,” a rights group said. The US-based Human Rights Watch said RUF rebel attacks “raise serious questions about the so-called safe passage as proposed by the office of the UN […]
TWENTY-FIVE Nigerian soldiers wounded during peacekeeping operations in west Africa and later convicted of mutiny and disobedience have appealed the judgement. A Nigerian court martial sentenced the soldiers to life imprisonment after finding them guilty of mutiny and acts of indiscipline after they staged a protest in the Egyptian capital Cairo, where they had been […]
THE Nigerian upper house of parliament has approved 5.5bn naira ($45.8m) to President Olusegun Obasanjo for the purchase of a new presidential aircraft. Last month, Obasanjo asked for Senate approval of the supplementary budget for the purchase of a presidential Gulf Stream V aircraft. The parliament had late last year refused to approve a plan […]
GERMANY is to give Uganda 88 million marks in development aid over the next three years to encourage improvements taking place in that country, the cooperation ministry said in a communique. It said improvements in water supply, professional education and the financial system in Uganda had opened the way to “future German development cooperation with […]
THERE is no foreseeable reason why crime levels will drop in the future, says the director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at the University of Pretoria, professor Mike Hough. Hough said according to political theory the basic function of the government was the protection of life and private property. “All other functions should be […]
THE president of the Central African Republic, Ange-Felix Patasse, has accused outgoing ministers of incompetence and announced that some of them would be “punished”. Patasse was speaking as he bid adieu to former prime minister Anicet Georges Dologuele, whom he dismissed on Sunday, without official explanation. Many failed in their duty. This is a serious […]
PROF MALEMA, Gaborone | Tuesday BOTSWANA hanged alleged love-triangle murderess Mariette Bosch in secret while the African Commission of Human and People’s Rights was still considering a petition she had filed, while further pleas on clemency were being prepared, and before a psychiatrist had had time to present his evaluation of Bosch. They also told […]
SOUTH Africa’s Anglovaal Mining Ltd and the state-run Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) on Friday said they would defer their proposal to call a special meeting to shake up steelmaker Iscor’s board. The two, which together hold about a 26% stake in Iscor, said in a joint statement that they would defer their call for a […]
KENYAN police and navy divers struggled in vain on Monday to remove the bodies of up to 100 passengers from two buses which collided then plunged into the swirling estuarial waters of Kenya’s Sabaki river on Sunday. “The numbers could be anything, even up to 100,” said Stanley Manyinya, police commissioner for the Coast Region, […]
PROF MALEMA, Gaborone | Tuesday BOTSWANA hanged alleged love-triangle murderess Mariette Bosch in secret while the African Commission of Human and People’s Rights was still considering a petition she had filed, while further pleas on clemency were being prepared, and before a psychiatrist had had time to present his evaluation of Bosch. They also told […]
AGREEMENT in principle was reached on Monday between senior members of the judiciary and the government on fundamental changes to the structure and functioning of South African courts, Justice Minister Penuell Maduna said. Among other things, it was agreed that the head of the judiciary would be the head of the Constitutional Court, who would […]
PHILLIP NKOSI, Nelspruit | Tuesday MPUMALANGA’s capital city has appointed a law firm which has failed to pay its levies for six years to track down and sue rates dodgers in the new greater Mbombela municipal council. The council is owed about R70m for services from township residents around Nelspruit, White River and Hazyview. However, […]
THE Namibian National Society for Human Rights on Monday accused president Sam Nujoma of dividing the Namibian nation following his public attacks on sexual and racial minority groups. Nujoma has publicly ordered Namibian police to arrest, deport and imprison gays and lesbians, saying homosexual behaviour was not permitted despite the country’s liberal constitution. “We did […]
AN Abuja high court on Monday sentenced three policemen to death for armed robbery, MITV television and state-run radio Nigeria reported. The riot policemen had in February in Okene, a major city in central Kogi state, killed five people after robbing them of huge sums of money, the reports said. The court found Benjamin Oyakhire, […]
POLICE expect to make 14 more arrests, following the detention of a foreign national who allegedly defrauded international financial institutions of millions of rands by hacking into their electronic databases. Senior Superintendent Martin Aylward said on Monday that Wilson Barney was arrested at a house in Kempton Park on Saturday. He appeared in the Kempton […]
AT least four people were killed when a fire partially gutted a double storey building in central Johannesburg early on Tuesday morning. The fire was believed to have started around 2am. An eyewitness said authorities were likely to find more bodies inside the building, which was situated at the corners of Nugget and Bree streets. […]
SOUTH African police divers found a body Monday in a crocodile-infested dam which is believed to be that of a black youth allegedly murdered by nine white rugby players. The divers found the body tied to an old metal gate following Tshepho Matlohe’s alleged murder on March 25 near Pietersburg. Policeman Motlafela Mojapelo said: “We […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Geneva | Tuesday WARRING parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continue to recruit and train child soldiers, the UN’s special rapporteur to the central African nation said in a report released this week. Roberto Garreton, who presented his report to the UN Commission on Human Rights, which is holding its annual […]
After scaling the heights with Jerry Maguire, Cuba Gooding Jr is now plumbing the depths as a racial pioneer, and finding new ways to suffer for his art.
EGYPTS leading Muslim clerics have banned women from acting as surrogate mothers or being impregnated by the sperm of deceased husbands, Egypt’s state-run MENA news agency reported on Sunday. Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi of Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam’s highest authority, and other clerics on Saturday issued a fatwa (decree) against such practices, saying they violate the […]