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, 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, contradicting a report from a South African official. Foreign Affairs representative Basetsane Thokoane said on Monday morning: “The lady […]
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. […]
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, 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
A SUSPECT in the bombings of US embassies in Dar-es-Salaam and Kenya begged South Africa in 1999 to hand him over to the United States rather than send him home to Tanzania, the Cape High Court heard this week. Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, a 27-year-old Tanzanian Muslim, is asking the court to rule that his arrest […]
Alec Hogg boardroom talk With well over two million shares traded in Ixchange stock this week, it’s clear some rather hefty bets are being laid ahead of what promises to be one of the most important few days in the wannabe world-leading software group’s history. After the past year’s share price collapse from R28 to […]
Barry Streek Eugene Saldanah, director of the Non-Profit Partnership, opened the international conference on tax and the non-profit sector this week by dressing organisations down with a warning that they have to administer their finances efficiently if they are to be sustainable. “We must dispel the myth and nonsense that the sector is lazy, incoherent […]
academic mall Globalisation affects tertiary education worldwide, but the southern hemisphere has unique problems Marianne Merten Harvard law professor Arthur Miller sold his teaching material to an online education provider, but the Ivy League university blocked the transaction and the matter is now before the courts. Pharmaceutical companies have stepped into the funding gap at […]
Justin Arenstein A key player in South Africa’s controversial arms deal, Shabir Shaik, helped sort out a financial crisis experienced by Deputy President Jacob Zuma in 1998. Shaik was Zuma’s financial adviser while he was finance MEC in KwaZulu-Natal. Bank records indicate that Shaik tried to help Zuma convince the troubled New Republic Bank (NRB) […]
Oscared: Clutching the little statuette were best actress Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich), best actor Russell Crowe (Gladiator), best supporting actor Benicio Del Toro (Traffic) and actress Marcia Gay Harden (Pollock). Best picture: Gladiator, and best foreign film: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. On the beat: The new Johannesburg Metro Police Department, with 1000 bobbies focusing on […]
Mail & Guardian reporter The Alliance for Children’s Entitlement to Social Security is calling on the government to move the age limit for child support grants from age seven to 18 years and to take cognisance of the needs of children affected by HIV/Aids. These recommendations emerged at a ground-breaking social security workshop in Cape […]
Mike Muller right to reply The Mail & Guardian’s articles about the recent floods in Mozambique and the role of the dams on the Zambezi river were disturbing for a number of reasons. Against the evidence, the articles (“Waiting for a watery Hiroshima”, March 9 to 15; “Floods a ‘predictable disaster’”, March 16 to 22) […]
Leading analysts believe the ruling party’s claims while dismissed by some should be taken seriously and debated Jaspreet Kindra The South African government has wined and dined the developed world consistently. Yet, claims the African National Congress, the First World, including the European Union, is undermining the black-run government. The party’s claim was the subject […]