Staff Reporter

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Wednesday RED-FACED South African police have been forced into a humiliating apology after a mock hostage drama – which they reported as real – was broadcast to the world at large by unsuspecting local and international media. The incident has sparked outrage amongst the media, members of the public and even […]

KENYAS health ministry has launched a five-year plan to combat the spread of malaria in urban and rural communities. “The control measures include providing basic prevention and treatment tools like specially treated mosquito nets for pregnant women and children,” said Richard Muga, Kenya’s director of medical services. He said that malaria on average claimed the […]

FRANCIS TEMMAN, Washington | Tuesday WAR and internal conflicts, poverty and a lack of political pluralism all contribute to the woeful human rights situation in Africa, the US State Department said in an annual report released this week. The worst abuses occur in countries rent by civil war or “external intervention,” the department said in […]

MORE than 4_000 “ghost” workers have been found on the payroll of Nigerias Lagos State, costing the authorities millions of naira. Earlier this year, the government embarked on a staff audit to determine the exact number of workers in Nigeria’s most populous state. Officials have so far discovered more than 4_000 fake or “ghost” workers, […]

CAMEROON authorities have discovered 7_000 fictitious names on the civil service payroll during an audit. The civil service and administrative reform ministry said monthly salaries were being paid out to individuals who were carrying out no official functions, with some having left their posts years earlier. Some cases concerned the names of people who had […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday THREE police officers and eight other men have been convicted in South Africa’s second biggest cash-in-transit heist, in which they made off with R17.4m and left two security guards dead. The Pretoria High Court convicted the men of carrying out the robbery by ambushing two cash transfer trucks with automatic […]

THE Komati River in Mpumalanga’s densely populated Nkomazi region on the border with Swaziland has been contaminated with cholera, health authorities warned. The new contamination has resulted in at least two new cholera infections over the past 48 hours, bringing to 45 the number of confirmed cases in the province. A health education campaign has […]

urundian parties have failed to reach consensus on the shape of their future transitional government, despite pressure from African states.

NIGERIA?S President Olusegun Obasanjo says his administration did not realise the magnitude of “rottenness and decay” in Nigeria before it came to power in May 1999 after more than 15 years of military rule. If he had known how “rotten” the country was before he assumed leadership, he would have carried out a “surgical operation” […]

THREE Cabinet ministers have strongly rejected reports and “insinuations” that government misled the public on the cost of South Africa’s controversial multi billion rand arms deal, and that there was ?undue influence? in the awarding of prime contracts. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel told Parliament’s watchdog public accounts committee (Scopa) that, like any long term financing […]

EGYPTIANS have been buying hundreds of sheep over the Internet to sacrifice for the annual Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha, an enterprising firm said this week. An employee with Masrawi, or “the Egyptian” in Arabic, said the month-and-a-half-old service was interrupted because they had sold out of their stock of 600 sheep, specially fattened for […]

ABOUT a dozen trucks loaded with food for some 4_000 refugees and displaced people have arrived in combat zones of southeastern Guinea, the World Food Program (WFP) said. The trucks, escorted by the Guinean army, bore 58 tonnes of food including flour, beans, oil and high-energy biscuits for some 2_500 Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees […]

TANZANIA’S government is working on legislation that will introduce restrictions on foreign investment in a bid to encourage investment by local black entrepreneurs. Currently there are no restrictions on direct foreign investment in Tanzania but foreigners are not allowed to invest in its fledgling capital markets. Trade and Industries Minister Iddi Simba said he wanted […]

PHILLIP NKOSI, Nelspruit | Monday MPUMALANGA is housing the poorest of its poor in tiny, dangerously constructed houses that have already cost the taxpayer R30m – and is preparing to pay dodgy developers an additional R21m despite warnings that the houses have been deliberately built with cheap sub-standard materials. Many of the 2_923 houses don’t […]

SOUTH Africa is to send helicopters, transport planes and medical supplies to help neighbour Mozambique battle floods that have already killed 41 people and are threatenening to displace up to 100_000 more. The SA army will send five helicopters, two transport planes and a Casa aircraft for use in the humanitarian operation. Food, medical supplies […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Arusha | Monday A MEETING of African heads of state to discuss Burundi’s peace process has been overshadowed by the launch of a major offensive on Bujumbura by Hutu rebels, which killed at least 15 people. The attack came on the eve of a summit intended to thrash out a list of people […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT | Sunday NAPSTER, the Internet’s most popular song trading site, on Friday petitioned a federal appeals court to review its earlier ruling that threatens to shutter the company. The filing was made in the face of a looming lower court injunction that could shut down the company. The Redwood City, California company filed […]

PRESIDENT Daniel arap Moi has met with leaders of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank to discuss Kenya’s fragile economy, but there was no sign that the IMF would resume much-needed aid payments to the east African country in the wake of the talks. The IMF funds were frozen in January due to […]

MORE than 250 people committed suicide in Zimbabwe last year after being diagnosed HIV positive. Police said the 251 HIV suicides accounted for more than half the 451 suicides reported nationally last year. Sociologists say the suicides were most likely a result of the stigma attached to having the disease. HIV/Aids deaths claim some 2 […]

WIVES of Ugandan soldiers who have returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with new brides have formed an association to fight off the “intruders”. The leader of the new organisation, the wife of a senior Ugandan army officer who refused to be named, said they want President Yoweri Museveni to compensate them for […]

VISITING British shadow foreign secretary Francis Maude has called for Zimbabwe to be suspended from the Commonwealth for what he called the repeated flouting of basic rules of law. Maude, from Britain’s opposition Conservative party, said Britain should lead the international community in trying to normalise the political situation in its former colony. “It’s quite […]

A BURGLAR who was robbed of his loot turned to the police for help, only to be arrested for his own crime. Leonard Mabunda, 21, was found guilty in the Nelspruit District Court of breaking into a house twice in April last year and stealing goods worth R60 000. While he was ferrying the goods […]

DARREN SCHUETTLER, Johannesburg | Monday AILING South African steel group Iscor has urged investors to reject what it called an “opportunistic” bid by two major shareholders to shake up Iscor’s board and remove its executive chairman. Anglovaal Mining Ltd (Avmin) and the Industrial Development Corp (IDC), which together hold 26% of Iscor, last week proposed […]

THIRTY-six Egyptians were struck down with serious food poisoning after eating fishy sandwiches sold for their alleged aphrodisiac properties. The owner of the fish restaurant was arrested for selling the dodgy snacks containing a mixture of fish, shrimps and lobster, which he said had the same effect as the Viagra anti-impotence pill. He was selling […]

SWAZILAND has decided not to employ a full time hangman, delaying the end of 10 people currently sitting on death row. Judges will continue, however, to sentence people to hang, says Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Chief Maweni Simelane. The country can?t afford to pay a hangman’s salary every month, especially with an average […]

SUDAN?S dissident leader Hassan al-Turabi is being kept in solitary confinement in Khartoum’s Cooper prison, his wife said after visiting him. “The Sheikh and fellow detainees are kept in solitary confinement but are allowed to go out in the prison’s yard to perform their five-times-a-day prayers collectively,” she said. Sudanese security forces detained Turabi, the […]

THE White House lashed out against the media Saturday, arguing that those who deride US President George W. Bush’s most recent verbal gaffes were “discordant with the American people”. “They don’t care what you think about his grammar, they care about what he’s going to do that affects their lives,” White House counsellor Mary Matalin […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Mozambique | Sunday THE Mozambican government has granted a concession to a South African firm to promote conservation and tourism in a wetlands and coastal region, including part of the ocean, the company involved said on Sunday. Christine Donaldson, representative for the Vilanculos Coastal Wildlife Sanctuary development, said the 30_000-hectare sanctuary lay within […]

TWO Danish investigators are due to visit Eritrea to look into accusations that Danish peacekeepers serving there sexually abused a 13-year-old girl. A group of soldiers, belonging to a UN force protecting the buffer zone between Ethiopia and Eritrea, are accused of “inappropriate behaviour towards the clients of a hotel,” the Danish army said, without […]

Own Correspondent, Wellington | Saturday SCIENTISTS have discovered penguin chicks fouled with what appeared to be oil close to an abandoned US Antarctic research station. The oiled Adelie penguin chicks were found at Cape Hallett on a recent mission close to the abandoned US research station, Emma Waterhouse, a scientist with the research group Antarctic […]

GRIFFIN SHEA, Caia, Mozambique | Sunday THE Zambezi River, which has already swallowed a huge swathe of central Mozambique, threatens to submerge a town of 41 000 people as dams upstream are being forced to release more water into the river, officials said on Saturday. “The situation does not look very, very good up along […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, AFP, Johannesburg | Sundday PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki has conveyed his “deep concern” about the Zimbabwean situation and has urged the leadership to refocus its attention on stabilising the country, according to sources close to the presidency, The Sunday Independent reports. “In the light of the more recent excesses over the judiciary and foreign […]