AMNESTY International has called on German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and President Johannes Rau to bring up the issue of thousands of missing people in Algeria when Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika visits Berlin on Monday and Tuesday. The German branch of Amnesty said there are more than 4_000 people missing since 1992 and “it is to […]
AT least 13 people were killed when two buses collided and plunged into a river near the Kenyan coastal town of Malindi on Sunday, state-run radio reported. It said the bus collided while crossing a bridge over river Sabaki at around 4:00 pm. Eleven bodies had been recovered from the river by dusk on Sunday […]
THE driver of the tour bus that crashed on the Long Tom Pass near Lydenburg in Mpumalanga in September 1999, will be sentenced in the town’s Regional Court on Monday. Seven British tourists and their South African tour guide were killed in the accident. One of the survivors of the accident, Carol Sandauer, is still […]
ISRAEL risks international isolation if it uses its military superiority to crush the Palestinians, France’s parliamentary speaker Raymond Forni said during a visit to Egypt on Sunday. “The Israelis, even if they are militarily superior, cannot allow themselves to crush the Palestinians, because they would isolate themselves,” the speaker of the French National Assembly said. […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Monday NEW evidence linking a major German multinational and a black empowerment company has emerged in the continuing controversy surrounding South Africa’s R43-m arms deal and government chief whip Tony Yengeni. Screened on e-tv national news, the unsigned document is said to show that German company Thyssen would pay Futuristic […]
AMERICAN authorities launched a massive public hunt on Sunday to kill off African gemsbok that are interfering with missile activities and threatening the natural environment in the state of New Mexico. The animals stem from about 100 gemsbok that were taken from Botswana’s Kalahari Desert in the 60s and 70s to create a big game […]
A COURT in the Kenyan coastal town of Kilifi has sentenced a man to three years in jail for marrying off his 10-year-old daughter to an elderly neighbour, judicial sources said on Sunday. Kenga Ngombo, a father of six, gave away the schoolgirl to the 70-year-old neighbour to settle a 6 000 shilling ($78) debt […]
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 […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday A MASSIVE split is looming within the official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) after revelations of a plan by the partys former Democratic Party caucus to sideline DA deputy and former New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk. The letter, by top party strategist Ryan Coetzee to DA leader Tony Leon, […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Gaborone | Monday SOUTH African convicted murderer Mariette Bosch has been hanged in Botswana, Deputy Commissioner of Prisons Herman Kau told AFP in Gaborone on Monday. “Mariette Bosch was hanged Saturday morning,” Kau said. Joseph Molebatsi, police commissioner in the Botswanan president’s office, confirmed she was executed in the early hours of Saturday […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni has come out fighting after a week of political drama and mud-slinging over a luxury 4×4 and a house he owns which he didn’t declare in parliament’s register of members’ assets, the News24 web site reports. “Whatever happens, there’ll be blood on the floor,” the […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Sunday KWAZULU-Natal’s Social Welfare and Population Development MEC Prince Gideon Zulu spent almost a third of the year between November 1999 and November 2000 at suites in Durban’s plush Royal Hotel, according to a report in the Sunday Times. Zulu’s representative, Mike Gumede, confirmed the figures were correct. He said Zulu […]
BRITAIN should re-use old graves to create more space and raise more cash for overcrowded, run-down graveyards, a report by members of parliament said. Authorities have let cemeteries get in such a state as to “shame all society” and if the public are to have affordable, accessible burial there is no alternative but to dig […]
THE auditor-general Shauket Fakie is investigating how the wife of African National Congress chief-whip Tony Yengeni, came to acquire her luxury Mercedes Benz, the Sunday Times newspaper reported. This comes a week after disclosures that Yengeni owned a Mercedes Benz ML320 4×4 which had been ordered as a staff car by a company which benefited […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Friday A REPORT which recommends the formation of a Commission for Gender Equality failed to be accepted by the National Assembly this week because the African National Congress majority did not muster the required number of votes. All opposition parties voted against the report, charging that the proposed commission was […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Midrand | Friday FARM killers are being paid and trained in an orchestrated onslaught on the farming community – which includes an instruction video on how to carry out attacks – agricultural bodies suggested this week. The instruction video was allegedly found in the possession of six farm attack suspects, said Werner Weber […]
THE first day on the beat for the new Johannesburg metropolitan police force started on a bad note when three of the new officers reportedly “brutally assaulted a 28-year-old motorcyclist while his hands were cuffed behind his back”, Beeld newspaper reports. Eyewitnesses to the incident in Anderson Street in the city centre on Friday morning […]
THE medical aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has suspended operations in Mogadishu after an attack on its compound that left at least 12 Somalis dead and life-saving equipment looted. Four western United Nations workers were still in the hands of militiamen in the Somali capital as a result of the incident, which MSF described […]
THE listing on the JSE Securities Exchange of the Airports Company of South Africa (Acsa) has been postponed for at least another three years, according to Transport Minister Dullah Omar. He said this had been agreed to by Acsa’s strategic equity partner, Aeroporti Di Roma (ADR), which owns 20% of Acsa. Reasons for the delay […]
SOUTH Africa’s youngest surviving crime victim, Courtney Ellerbeck, turned one on Friday, SABC radio news reported. Courtney became a crime statistic while still in the womb. Her mother, Leslie-Ann Ellerbeck, was shot in the stomach during an attempted hijacking in Boksburg and underwent caesarean surgery. The baby had emergency surgery a few days later after […]
MALAWI?S main opposition leader Gwanda Chakuamba has accused the government of fabricating a coup plot as an excuse to crack down on political opponents. Intelligence reports gathered by the opposition showed the government fingered Sudi Sulaimana and Colvin Kaumira in the phony coup plot to implicate the opposition, Chakuamba said. The two were among nine […]
TWO Tanzanian nationals accused of mounting a series of attacks on tourists in southwestern Kenya’s Maasai Mara Game Reserve nearly two years ago have been sentenced to hang by a Narok court. Saikara ole Kisusua, 36, and Kamakoru Suele, 25, were convicted on 10 counts of robbery with violence by Narok Senior Resident Magistrate Thomas […]
SIX South African companies are among 12 prospective core investors in four Nigerian tourism and hospitality sector enterprises. Two South African firms – Reliance Estates and Shelterpoint Properties/Protea – have expressed their interest along with Hans Gremlin Nigeria Limited in Capital Hotels, based in Abuja. Reliance Estates/Legacy Hotels and Stallion Property/Southern Sun Interest have also […]
Los angeles – Actress and fitness pitchwoman Suzanne Somers says she is being treated for breast cancer and is undergoing homeopathic treatment against the will of her doctors.
In three months’ time the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park will boast three of the Big Five and be well on its way to becoming an international tourist destination Niki Moore Andrew Zaloumis is an organisational whizz-kid. Only he would have been able to persuade a massive thunderstorm to hold its fire until his VIP […]
David Macfarlane Technikons are the latest force in tertiary education to launch an assault on essential pillars of Minister of Education Kader Asmal’s national higher education plan. The Committee of Technikon Principals (CTP) warns it will have “severe difficulties in engaging” with the Department of Education on implementing the plan if certain key issues are […]
Wilhelm Disbergen On Tuesday the Pretoria High Court will hear a case that could have wide- reaching repercussions. Under the Child Care Act, Suzanne du Toit and her partner, Anne-Marie de Vos, are not allowed to share joint custody of the two adopted children they have raised for the past six years. Du Toit has […]
Veteran fast bowler returns to form in the West Indies Peter Robinson At one point during his career when his place in the England team was threatened, Ian Botham took to wearing a T-shirt bearing the legend: “Form is temporary, Class is permanent.” There’s a rider, perhaps, that needs to be added to this: when […]
Ken Hughes Crossfire I have known the anthropologist Caroline White for almost two decades. I can understand the attitude expressed toward White by Brenda Gourley (“The University of Natal has nothing to hide”, March 9 to 15). As I said to a friend the other day “95% of the time I love Caroline, and the […]
Martin Spring City Signals The bear market is pushing some investors to extremes. In Italy, where I’m writing this, an anonymous investor who says he’s been ruined by falling share prices claims he stole the body of Enrico Cuccia an influential banker said to have been “the puppet master” of the Milan Stock Exchange in […]
There is no end to the bloodletting as Israel responds to a surge in Palestinian attacks Suzanne Goldenberg in Jerusalem Israeli army helicopters attacked the headquarters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s elite forces on Wednesday night after another suicide bomber claimed the lives of two teenagers. Witnesses said helicopter gunships fired missiles on Gaza and […]
James Meek Dr Ian Wilmut, the scientist who led the team behind Dolly the sheep, launched a passionate attack this week on plans to clone humans, saying it would be “extremely cruel” for the mothers and resultant children. In an article in the American journal Science, Wilmut denounced the declared aim of the Italian and […]