ANGOLAN doctors are refusing to work in four southern provinces hard-hit by violence in the nation’s 25-year civil war. The national public health service announced two months ago that it was taking applications from doctors to fill 60 vacant posts in Bie, Moxico, Kwando-Kubango and Kwanza-Norte provinces. “But no one has applied,” said the ministry’s […]
MORE than 160 bodies have been found in a suburb of Burundi’s capital where government troops a week earlier drove out rebels who seized control of it for more than 12 days, local officials said. Hutu extremist fighters of the National Liberation Front (FNL) on February 24 seized Kinama in the biggest rebel attack on […]
GRIFFIN SHEA, Harare | Wednesday ZIMBABWE will not cooperate with a fact-finding diplomatic mission from the Commonwealth on alleged government intimidation of judges and the media, says Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge. “This is an unprocedural request. They have no mandate for the mission they want to send,” Mudenge said of the mission. “We will not […]
THE United Nations hopes to be able to boost its force in Sierra Leone from 10_350 troops to 17_500 within six months, enabling it to push deeper into rebel-held areas. Set up in October 1999 to support a peace agreement which formally ended the nine-year civil war, one of the most brutal in Africa, UNAMSIL […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Wednesday THE South African government has suspended its plans to expropriate an Mpumalanga farm, and will instead reopen negotiations with the aggrieved farmer in an effort to resolve the issue amicably. Wallace Mgoqi, the country’s chief land claims commissioner, said the land ministry had shelved plans to expropriate Willem Pretorius’s cattle […]
THE Vatican has denied a report in the National Catholic Reporter that says sexual abuse of nuns by priests, especially in Aids-ravaged Africa, is a serious problem. The article is based on five reports by senior members of women’s religious orders and a priest going back to 1994. The National Catholic Reporter said the reports […]
BENIN will hold a presidential run-off vote pitting President Mathieu Kerekou against low-profile candidate Bruno Amoussou, after two rivals pulled out of what they branded a “masquerade.” Amoussou, a government minister in a west African country which had been hailed as a model of democracy, said he would stand in the second round due on […]
A 43-year-old man arrested in connection with the alleged abduction and indecent assault of seven-year-old Nadia Neethling has told the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court that he was “innocent” and could not afford a lawyer. Willem Hendrik Christoffel Vorster and his 21-year-old girlfriend, Aletta Johanna Swarts, both of Danville, Pretoria, were not asked to plead. The couple […]
OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Pretoria | Wednesday ONE in every nine South Africans – about 4.7 million people – was infected with HIV by the end of 2000, but the infection rate is slowing, according to a new government study. “The survey indicated that to a large extent we are in control. We can indeed say there […]
THE main rival to Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni in this month’s presidential election says he has been questioned by police over accusations of sedition, terrorism and treason. Retired colonel Kizza Besigye, who won 27% of votes cast in the March 12 poll against the incumbent Museveni’s 69%, said he had spent more than two-and-a-half hours being […]
COLOMBIA, Russia and Sierra Leone were the deadliest assignments for journalists last year, with conflict and crime killing three in each nation. Overall, two dozen journalists were killed in the line of duty in 2000, many of them assassinated in retaliation for their work in countries stretching from Bangladesh to Uruguay, according to “Attacks on […]
A NIGERIAN appeal court has temporarily halted the murder trial of the son of late dictator Sani Abacha pending an appeal hearing at the nation’s highest court. Mohammed Abacha and three others are standing trial in a Lagos high court for the June 1996 murder of Kudirat Abiola, wife of late businessman politician – and […]
EGYPTS minister of electricity Ali al-Saidi announced on Sunday that one or two electrical power distribution companies will be privatised later this year. The assets of the Egypt-Electricity are estimated at 60bn pounds ($15.6bn), the minister said. The private sector is already allowed to invest in building new electrical power plants. – AFP CUSTOM SHARE […]
A TOP UN official says growing donor fatigue is slowing aid flows to 3.8 million Angolans displaced by decades of civil war. Dennis McNamara, special UN coordinator on internal displacement, said donors wanted to see more moves towards poverty reduction and development, adding that many wanted the Angolan government to make better use of the […]
Aardman’s hit film was copied from my book insists children’s author.
SOUTH Korea’s Hyundai Corp says it has struck gold worth more than $300m in the west African state of Mali. The group confirmed reports on the find in a report to the Korea Stock Exchange. The trading arm of the Hyundai Group business conglomerate estimated it had discovered about 32 tonnes of gold valued at […]
GUINEAN government forces claim to have found the bodies of hundreds of rebel troops believed killed in recent fighting in the south of the country. The victims were “certainly killed by Guinean army bombardments,” said a source. Guinean army troops have been fighting rebels since September who they say come from neighbouring Liberia and Sierra […]
GUINEA Bissau’s President Kumba Yala has dismissed Prime Minister Caetano N’Tchama by decree, following a row in the government which had led to political paralysis. No official reason was given in the decree for sacking N’Tchama, but he had been contested by most politicians, including members of Yala’s Social Renewal Party (PRS), which had “withdrawn […]
DUMISANE LUBISI, Nelspruit | Tuesday MORE than 6_000 cases of fraud and corruption have been reported to Mpumalanga’s government anti-corruption hotline over the past year, says provincial director general Stanley Soko. He said 6_600 cases had been phoned in on the toll free number, or reported at the hotline office in the Premier’s Office, in […]
MPUMALANGA farmer Willem Pretorius is to approach the Land Claims Court on Tuesday for an annulment of the expropriation notice served on him by the government last week for his Lydenburg farm, Boomplaats. Officially, however, the land became government property at midnight on Monday. Pretorius’ lawyer Tiaan van Dyk said documents would be handed in […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday THE African National Congress in the Western Cape on Monday ordered the party’s disciplinary committee to provide it with a further report in order to decide whether or not to bring other charges against embattled MP Mamphi Ramotsamai. ANC provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha said the working committee was officially […]
THE United Nations will contribute $250m to an international campaign to help displaced people in Angola. Humanitarian aid agencies are reaching some 1.1 million of the estimated 2.7 million displaced people in the southwest African country, which the UN Children’s Fund has named the most dangerous for children because of landmines, disease and malnutrition. – […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday AN Aids activism group backing the South African government in a court battle with pharmaceutical giants demanded on Monday that the state devise a plan for giving Aids sufferers access to drugs. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said government must say how much money it would spend on Aids testing, […]
KWAZULU-Natal’s MEC for transport S’bu Ndebele is expected to announce an integrated transport plan and an initiative to deliver load-bearing bicycles to rural women when he makes his department’s budget speech in Pietermaritzburg on Tuesday. The load-bearing bicycles, which were imported by Transport Minister Dullah Omar from China, were intended to make the lives of […]
JARED OBUYA, Nairobi | Tuesday JUST 10 companies can help save the world’s forests, says a report published by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The planet has already lost half its original forests to meet world needs, yet, with proper management, only 600 million hectares will be enough to meet projected future needs, says the […]
A MACLEAN town man, charged with raping his 80-year-old mother, told the East London District Court that he would conduct his own defence. The 44-year-old man was not asked to plead and was remanded in custody until May 29. He was arrested by the Maclean police on Sunday in Komga. Police said the man had […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday SOUTH African and Zimbabwean government ministers have held talks in Pretoria aimed at tackling the “very deep economic crisis” in Zimbabwe, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Monday. Manuel said the two days of discussions were not just a token gesture. “It is not narrowly assisting [Zimbabwe], it is not […]
DOCTORS in Cape Town have implanted an artificial heart in a 60-year-old male patient in the first operation of its kind to be performed in South Africa. The 10-member surgical team left the patient’s old heart in place and stitched the artificial heart onto it. The man-made heart – known as the “Berlin Heart” and […]
SOUTH African National Defence Force assistance in March to flood-ravaged Mozambique cost R14,02m, according to President Thabo Mbeki. In a letter to the National Assembly tabled on Tuesday, the president said 83 SANDF personnel were deployed in Mozambique from March 1 to 15. Four Oryx helicopters, two BK117 helicopters, two C130 transport aircraft and one […]
THE Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will cut oil output by around one million barrels per day (bpd) on Friday, acting Libyan oil minister Ahmed Abdulkarim Ahmed said. “The cut is going to be around one million (bpd) to keep stability in the market,” he told reporters as he arrived in Vienna for a […]
IVORIAN President Laurent Gbagbo has ended a two-day fence-mending visit to Nigeria with the two countries pledging to strengthen relations further. Nigerian officials said the visit was aimed at easing relations between the two west African countries which became strained last year after Nigerian criticism of the military regime of General Robert Guei. – AFP
SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki will pay a three-day state visit to Cuba this month to explore trade and investment opportunities. Mbeki, who will be accompanied by several cabinet ministers, including Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, will meet Cuban President Fidel Castro during his March 27-29 visit. – AFP