GHANA’S new government said this week that empty coffers had forced Accra to accept debt-ridden status – a move which has sparked widespread criticism from opposition parties and trade unions. Finance Minister Yaw Osafo-Marfo, who last week declared that Accra had decided to join the HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries) initiative, said Ghana had no […]
A NIGERIAN government panel Tuesday submitted a report recommending 92 changes to the constitution drafted by the last military government in 1999. One was extending the term of presidents and state governors from the current four to five years. The 24-member panel also recommended that the government convene a conference to debate the report and […]
SOUTH African computer company Mustek Ltd on Monday reported a halving in net profit for the first six months to end-December 2000 to R19.6m from almost R41m last time. Earnings per share fell to 19.62 cents from 40.96 cents, while headline EPS dropped to 29.77 cents from 45.20 cents. It blamed the lower headline result […]
SA President Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday met farming representatives about the flagging agricultural sector’s problems – disease, attacks, job cuts and tension between white landowners and their black workers. Peter Rammutla, president of the largest union representing black farmers in South Africa, said Mbeki gave the union four months to come up with solutions to […]
LUCIA MUTIKANI, Johannesburg | Tuesday SHARES ended sharply lower on Monday, with the benchmark All Share index slumping to a six-week low as investors hugged the sidelines following a slide on Wall Street on Friday, traders said. The market was also rattled by negative sentiment stemming from Japan, where the Nikkei average tumbled to a […]
MINISTERS and officials from 11 African countries who hold a controlling share in Air Afrique have held an emergency meeting to discuss the fate of the cash-strapped carrier. Air Afrique’s new director, American Jeffrey Erickson, announced a two-month lay-off of a quarter of the 4_000-strong workforce after he took over the ailing airline in January. […]
AN Egyptian tour guide kidnapped four Germans in a bid to trade them for his two sons overseas in the custody of his estranged German wife. Egyptian security officials on Tuesday contacted the kidnapper, urging him to give himself up, police said. “The security forces are in telephone contact with him to convince him to […]
A LIBERIAN court on Tuesday denied bail to four Liberian journalists arrested on espionage charges over an article criticising the government’s military spending. Judge J. Boima Kontoe argued that under US law, used in Liberia whenever local laws fail to address the issue at stake, espionage was a capital crime and therefore non-bailable. Four journalists […]
THE median survival time after Aids was diagnosed increased four times from 1984 to 1995 thanks to drug therapy, a study released on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association said. People diagnosed with Aids by the presence of an opportunistic illness in 1984 lived a median of another 11 months. But by […]
JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Wednesday AFRICAN anti-corruption campaigners have urged the United Nations to draft an international treaty expediting the recovery and repatriation of an estimated $30bn stolen from some of the worlds poorest countries and transferred abroad. Transparency International said the assets had been misappropriated from some of the world’s poorest countries by corrupt […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Wednesday CHEMICAL warfare expert Dr Wouter Basson’s legal team will on Wednesday commence with a series of applications for his discharge on 61 charges ranging from murder to fraud and drug trafficking. Basson’s trial is set to be one of South Africa’s most expensive, with just his defence – for which […]
Hollywood superstars Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell are on the verge of separating after 17 years, according to reports in the <i>US today</i>.
CIRCUMCISION ceremonies have been blamed for the dismal pass rate at 16 rural schools in the Northern Province, where less than 10% of matriculants passed last year. Boys are often out of school for three months each winter to be initiated at traditional bush schools. Provincial education representative Freddy Greaver said the department would meet […]
CANADA has announced an aid package of $2mto help flood victims in Mozambique and Malawi. Half of the money goes to the World Food Programme to help finance the transportation of emergency aid within the two African countries. The remainder will be used to help finance emergency shelter and fresh water supplies to the flood […]
A US Navy F/A-18 jet accidentally dropped a bomb on a group of military personnel at a bombing range in northern Kuwait, killing six people, including five Americans and one New Zealander, Pentagon officials said. At least seven other military servicemen, five Americans and two Kuwaitis, were injured. Last month, the USS Greeneville submarine knifed […]
AROUND 100 children have died of measles and 30 people have died of meningitis in separate outbreaks in northwestern Nigeria in the past two weeks. Local medical officials said around 600 children living in Sokoto State had caught the measles and around 100 had died. Around 30 people had died of cerebro-spinal meningitis in an […]
NIGERIA?S human rights panel has begun two weeks of hearings in the northern home city of the late military dictator Sani Abacha, with a call to investigate the 1996 death of journalist Kaltho Bagauda. Bagauda, a journalist with the independent Nigerian news magazine The News, was killed in 1996. His family say he was killed […]
FOOD deliveries to refugees and displaced people in Guinea’s troubled Parrot’s Beak region, suspended last week because of fresh fighting, remained impossible for lack of a passable road, the UN refugee agency said. Humanitarian aid to the area, where the UNHCR estimates a refugee presence of some 135_000, from Sierra Leone and Liberia, along with […]
DUMISANE LUBISI, Balfour | Tuesday THE vehicle testing centre in Balfour, Mpumalanga, has been shut down after three of its five traffic officers were arrested on fraud and corruption charges. Police said the three men were arrested after an internal investigation into allegations that they issued learners’ and drivers’ licences, as well as roadworthy certificates, […]
FRENCH internet provider Wanadoo plans to invest $20m over the next five years in Algeria in partnership with local firm Eepad to tap the under-exploited Algerian market, Eepad said on Sunday. Wanadoo signed an agreement late on Saturday under which it bought 25% of internet provider Eepad’s capital. “Wanadoo will bring us tech assistance and […]
THE state-owned Special Risks Insurance Association (SASRIA) is to pay the government a special dividend of R3bn to retire government debt. The bulk of the money will be used to retire debt during fiscal 2001/02 – a year in which the government has pledged to repay about R7.5bn of its debt. SASRIA was set up […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Geneva | Tuesday THE International Red Cross has called for international support for South Africas bid to provide cheap drugs to Aids sufferers, saying humanitarian needs should prevail over commercial concerns. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies urged that access to life-saving drugs in developing countries be ensured, and […]
SIX fishingboat crewmen – four Thais and two Myanmar nationals – died after eating deadly pufferfish which they had cooked into a spicy tom yam soup. The skipper of the vessel cooked up the blowfish for dinner a week ago and offered it to the 13 other crew aboard the boat as it cruised in […]
A SENSATIONAL new bra which allows women to pump up their cleavage by up to two cup sizes is to be launched this week. The Gossard Ultrabra Airoticis is made from fine net fabric and has crescent-shaped airbags stitched into each side which can be inflated or deflated with the help of a tiny rubber […]
POLICE showed up in force on Monday outside the Washington offices of pharmaceuticals industry association Pharma, as Act-Up Philadelphia staged an unauthorised demonstration to highlight the plight of untreated HIV-sufferers in South Africa. A lively group of around 300 people, many of them infected with HIV, milled around a huge Dracula-style dummy with blood on […]
THE UN Security Council has expressed concern at new fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo only four days before warring forces are due to disengage. Fighting between government forces and Ugandan-backed rebels broke out on Sunday in Equateur Province in the north-east of Congo. The United Nations observer mission in Democratic Republic of Congo, […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kampala | Tuesday THE vote count in Uganda’s presidential election is being overshadowed by allegations that supporters of President Yoweri Museveni stuffed ballot boxes and, with the help of armed men, sent away opposition supporters. Monday’s elections, seen as the greatest challenge yet to Museveni, were also hit by a threat by the […]
A 16-year-old boy was killed by a crocodile while swimming with friends in the Sabie river near Bushbuckridge in the Northern Province. The boy’s friends found his body floating in the water after they scared the crocodile away by throwing a net over him. In December, three people were killed by crocodiles in South Africa […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, San Fransisco | Saturday THE recording industry said it planned to send a list of 135_000 copyright songs to Napster, giving the file-swapping company until Wednesday to block their free exchange on the online service. The Recording Industry Association of America planned to send the list to Napster electronically some time Friday night, […]
CLAIRE KEETON and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Beira | Monday MOZAMBIQUE remains on the brink of a major disaster from new flooding, the Red Cross has warned, as river levels continue to rise steadily as a result of steady rains and dams upstream releasing vast bodies of water. We could be on the brink of a major […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday THE government is investigating declaring a national emergency to fight Aids, which could speed up access to anti-Aids drugs as the government battles pharmaceutical giants over cheap medicines, the Sunday Times reports. In the Pretoria High Court this week, the government faced 39 of the world’s biggest drug producers as […]
CATHOLIC bishops meeting at the weekend in Nigeria’s capital Abuja have slammed the introduction of strict Islamic law in some northern states, describing it as irresponsible and unacceptable. Ten states in northern Nigeria have adopted or announced plans to introduce the Sharia, which includes punishment for drinking, gambling, prostitution and adultery. Some Christians have been […]