PIETER-Dirk Uys’s controversial Aids education show has been banned from the campus of Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, reports Beeld newspaper. The show is, according to Professor Madoda Zibi, vice-rector of development and chairman of the university’s Aids committee, “unscientific”. Professor Carools Reinecke, the university’s rector, also “rejected” the show. Dr Elmarie Claassens, a […]
MPUMALANGA will spend more than five times what it expected on the plush new government complex in provincial capital Nelspruit. The riverside complex was originally envisioned as a R120m development when it was approved four years ago. It has already cost Mpumalanga R561m and will cost an additional R51m to finish sometime this year. The […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Rome | Wednesday HEIGHTENED awareness about the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in poor countries would help save lives and promote development, international leaders and experts at a conference have heard. Backed by former European Union Commissioner Emma Bonino, Italian Nobel Prize winner Rita Levi Montalcini and Aidos – an Italian NGO […]
After telling disbelieving friends all weekend that he was going to shoot up the school where he was taunted for being skinny, a smiling 15-year-old Charles “Andy” Williams allegedly opened fire in his San Diego high school bathroom killing two teenagers and injuring 13. It was the worst act of violence at an American school […]
MPUMALANGA’s embattled health department has bowed to public pressure and withdrawn all disciplinary charges against doctors and nurses who tried to help rural rape victims get counselling and free anti-Aids drugs. Rob Ferreira hospital superintendent Dr Thys van Mollendorf and three senior managers were charged with gross misconduct last month after allowing the Greater Nelspruit […]
AN independent election watchdog has blamed Uganda’s presidential guard for violent weekend clashes in the west of the country that left one person dead. National Election Monitoring (NEM) called on government to demilitarise the electoral process and to restore public confidence in the elections by withdrawing the guard from areas where the president is not […]
OLD Mutual, the South African life insurer listed in London, has reported a 38% rise in operating profits for 2000 but warned business conditions may prove challenging in 2001. South Africa’s largest life insurer proposed a final dividend of 3.1 pence, making a total for the year of 4.7p, up 18%. – Reuters CUSTOM SHARE […]
SOUTH Africa has offered to help the British government fight the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease there. The provincial agriculture minister of KwaZulu-Natal province said his province, having battled an outbreak of the deadly livestock disease, was sympathetic with the “harrowing and anxious time” Britain was going through. Foot-and-mouth disease broke out in Britain in February, […]
A KENYAN father has been sent to jail for three years for marrying off his 13-year-old daughter for 22 000 Kenyan shillings ($280) in bride price. Gudu Mramba, 35, said he needed the money to pay for hospital treatment. The would-be “husband” – a 51-year-old father of six – and his teenage son were given […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Potchefstroom | Wednesday A SOUTH African farmer allegedly threw highly toxic tablets into his on workers’ homes, harming 47 of them, himself and three policemen on the scene, police reported on Wednesday. Nineteen children were among those admitted to hospital vomiting, feeling drowsy and complaining of muscular pains from the phostoxin, a substance […]
Own Correspondent, Pretoria | Wednesday THE world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies have been forced onto the defensive in their court action to stop South Africa importing cheap generic drugs, with the judge adjourning the trial to let the country’s leading Aids advocacy group make its case. In a landmark legal battle, the 39 drug firms are […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria| Tuesday THE Pretoria High Court on Tuesday came out against the indefinite postponement of an application by pharmaceutical companies challenging legislation that provides for the importation of cheap generic drugs to South Africa. Putting off the case for four months – as requested by the companies – was out of the question, […]
A DISGRUNTLED electrician disrupted South African singer Brenda Fassie’s concert in Nairobi, Kenya, on Saturday night when he disconnected the main power supply and plunged the nightclub in darkness for nearly an hour. Fassie was just about to perform at City Cabanas when the power was cut. The electrician lost his temper when parking was […]
SUE THOMAS, Pretoria | Tuesday TIME is running out for Thanduxolo Doro, one of more than 2_000 people who paraded through Pretoria to protest a court action by 39 international drug companies trying to prevent South Africa’s government from hunting down the cheapest Aids drugs it can find. Doro, who looks much older than his […]
THE bodies of 20 people have been found in swampland near an ammunition dump which exploded in Guinea’s capital, taking the total presumed death toll from the blast to 42. The bodies were mostly those of children under the age of 15. The dead were believed to be children and other people who drowned when […]
THE Kenyan government has cut down 167_000 acres of forest to settle the landless, but have inadvertently contributed to the drought gripping the central African country, warns the leader of the Green Belt Movement, Professor Wangari Maathai. Maathai and Norway’s ambassador to Kenya, Per J. Haugestad, inspected the Aberdares forest, where millions of trees were […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday THE South African Post Office has been granted an urgent court interdict preventing about 1_400 striking postal workers from intimidating other workers following violent clashes in Johannesburg and Pretoria. The strike turned violent when strikers attacked the cars of their fellow workers who had decided not to go on strike. […]
NIGERIA plans to raise its crude oil allocation for domestic consumption by 145_000 barrels per day (bpd) to 445_000 bpd in a bid to end crippling petroleum products shortages, the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp said. – Reuters CUSTOM SHARE SERVICE CUSTOMISE your share portfolio and have live prices delivered by e-mail or cellphone. Various […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Brussels | Monday A PROMINENT British gay rights campaigner who tried to make a citizen’s arrest of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe over his human rights record was knocked to the ground by the president’s bodyguards. Peter Tatchell of the British gay rights group Outrage yelled “Arrest Mugabe, arrest the torturer” as the veteran African […]
BIBLIOFIND, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, was partially shut down after discovering that hackers downloaded the names, addresses and credit card numbers of approximately 98_000 customers over a period of several months. The company discovered the problem, which began in October, after the site was defaced last week, said Jim Courtovich, a company representative. Bibliofind, founded […]
ZIMBABWE has lost about 2_000 teachers who qualified last year and may have left the country for greener pastures, said deputy minister of education and culture, Aeneas Chigwedere. Some of the teachers possibly preferred to remain unemployed, however, after being deployed to rural schools, he said. When the new term began in January some rural […]
WITS University’s Student Representative Council will undergo HIV tests in public, hoping to encourage students to do the same. SRC Vice-President John Kuhn said while there was a perception that between 25 and 40% of South African students were HIV positive, these figures were not proven statistics. “Students need to start testing so that we […]
TWENTY people died and 27 were seriously injured when their truck hit an anti-tank mine in southern Angola this week. The Catholic radio station Ecclesia said seven government soldiers accompanying the civilians were among the injured. Ecclesia also said that four people had been killed and six injured when suspected rebels attacked a village in […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Monday THE Pretoria High Court trial involving a challenge by pharmaceutical companies against government attempts to obtain cheaper medicines for South African citizens was adjourned shortly after it started on Monday morning due to repeated power failures. Before the adjournment, counsel for the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association, which launched the court action, […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Monday LAWYERS from 39 pharmaceutical giants today launch a court battle against a law that would allow South Africa to import or produce cheap generic anti-Aids medicines rather than using the firms’ more expensive brand drugs. In a case that could affect millions of Aids victims in poor countries, the South […]
ILDA JACOBS, Washington DC | Monday SOUTH Africa’s world famous acapella group, Ladysmith Black Mambazos documentary film, “On Tip Toe: Gentle Steps to Freedom” has been given an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Documentary. They were also nominated for their second Grammy for best traditional and folk release for their album, “Live in Royal […]
GENSEC Asset Management, South Africa’s second-biggest fund manager, is to change its name to Sanlam Investment Management after a buyout of the minority shareholding which Sanlam held in Gensec. The change, which would better reflect the company’s broader international focus, would take effect on April 2, the company said in a statement. Future plans for […]
PHILLIP NKOSI, Nelspruit | Monday THE South African Human Rights Commission has subpoenaed Mpumalanga’s controversial health MEC Sibongile Manana to explain why the State neglected a 10-year boy who was left paralysed and brain damaged after a bungled operation four years ago. Zweli Methule was left paralysed and brain damaged, without the ability to speak, […]
RESCUE teams working in flood-swamped central Mozambique are concentrating on bringing food to thousands of stranded people unwilling to leave their homes. Rescue teams found people reluctant to leave their homes despite repeated attempts by the Mozambican government to persuade them to move. In many cases rescuers have been waved away by the villagers. The […]
SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki, engaged in peacemaking efforts, has had talks with rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Bemba, who heads the Ugandan-backed Congolese Liberation Front (FLC) in the north and northeast of the war-torn DRC, was received by the South African leader for a little over an hour. […]
SOUTH African police have arrested 13 people for beating to death three youths and severely injuring a woman who were caught stealing chairs from a church in Soweto township. The bodies of the men were found lying on a soccer field. The injured woman was left in critical condition. Police condemned the residents decision to […]
FOREIGN aircraft have been overflying southeastern Angola to supply UNITA rebels in a “worrying military situation”, the government daily Jornal de Angola reported. The paper did not identify the nationality of the planes, but said government forces in the area will “step up their (reaction) speed to avoid surprises. Rebels are currently active in almost […]