Staff Reporter

THE petrol price will drop by 13 cents to the litre on Wednesday, further easing consumer worries raised by a 30% petrol increase over the best part of last year. Diesel will drop by 16 cents to the litre while illuminating paraffin drops by 25 cents, offering hope for millions of users ahead of the […]

EGYPT’S Orascom Telecom is emerging as a significant regional player as it buys up mobile phone licenses in Africa, the Middle East and Pakistan. Analysts with Cairo-based EFG-Hermes and London-based HSBC are bullish on OT’s long-term prospects, saying it has positioned itself well to profit from surging growth in mobile phone use in countries lacking […]

A BANGLADESHI court has asked Dhaka prison officials to produce a Nigerian languishing in jail here since 1992 after being sentenced to a two-month term. A High Court ruled Goddyu Ochendo should be produced this week. Ochendo, 28, and his teenage American girl Elieda MacCord were arrested in Dhaka airport in March 1992 and charged […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday SEVERAL of South Africa’s top black empowerment companies will be forming a consortium to re-capitalise Sekunjalo Investments, the listed empowerment group hit by the liquidation of Leisurenet last year, says Sekunjalo CEO Iqbal Surve. The groups would be pooling their resources to provide Sekunjalo with enough funds to become a […]

MALAWIS magistrate court has cleared former public works minister Abdul Pillane of all 10 graft charges against him. Pillane is the second official in two months to be cleared of corruption charges, which have riled President Bakili Muluzi’s administration for two years. The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), which was prosecuting the case, will appeal the decision, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Nelspruit | Tuesday A 10-year old Mpumalanga boy who was left paralysed and brain damaged after attempts to treat his broken arm went horribly wrong four years ago may finally see justice this week. The SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) said it would investigate why provincial authorities ignored repeated appeals for additional medical […]

GOVERNMENT workers in the Central African Republic had a pleasant surprise when their salaries were paid and they were even granted a 10% wage increase. The government of President Ange-Felix Patasse has given civil servants their wages for January – of last year. Moreover, the pay rises granted people in positions of “high state responsibility”, […]

ELEVEN people were killed and eight others seriously wounded in an ambush in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), rebel-controlled radio Bukavu and hospital sources reported. The ambush occurred on Friday on a road in the south Kivu region linking Bukavu and Kisangani. The report said the attack was carried out by Mai-Mai militiamen opposed […]

NINE children were found hoeing weeds during a raid on a cotton farm by the Northern Province Child Labour Forum this week. The owner of Blinkwater Boerdery in Roedtan near Potgietersrus, Danie Engelbrecht, will be charged for violating the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, which outlaws the use of children under the age of 15. […]

THE African National Congress (ANC) MP sacked from a key post for demanding a probe into the government?s multi-billion rand arms deal says the way his party is handling the probe is “very stupid.” Andrew Feinstein, who played a leading role in getting parliament to back the probe, told the Afrikaans-language Sunday newspaper Rapport: “We […]

THREE people were killed and 30 others injured on Sunday when a vehicle was driven, apparently deliberately, into a crowd of supporters of a candidates in Uganda’s presidential elections, police said. A pick-up truck ploughed into the throng of people who had gathered to welcome presidential candidate Kizza Besigye to their area east of Kampala. […]

THE SA Post Office is expected to ask government to continue its subsidies beyond March, having indicated that it will report another loss this year, Business Day reports. The organisation’s continuing financial plight is also reflected in a request to renegotiate the management contract signed last year with New Zealand Post International, now called Transend […]

A PAKISTANI civil court has summonsed former South African cricket chief Ali Bacher to appear next month in a $1.7m libel suit filed by former umpire Javed Akhtar. An ex-parte decision will be taken if Bacher fails to appear or contest the case. Bacher, now head of South Africa’s 2003 World Cup committee, told the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, East London | Monday SOUTH Africa’s medical watchdog body, the Health Professions Council (HPCSA), has launched a probe into kickbacks after an ethics survey confirmed widespread unethical behaviour in the medical profession. The survey, by the Ethics Institute of South Africa, found that more than half of doctors had observed misconduct by a […]

UNITED States President George Bush called his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki at the weekend and the two leaders are planning to meet. Mbeki’s office says the two touched on the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as they spoke about “matters of mutual interest.” SABC public radio reported that Bush acknowledged the […]

UNITA rebels in Angola claim they brought down an Antonov-26 military aircraft in the east of the African country on Thursday, killing all 22 people on board, according to a report by the Portuguese news agency LUSA. Citing a UNITA statement, the agency said the rebels hit the plane with anti-aircraft fire and that it […]

ARMED bandits in the popular Air mountains region of northern Niger have attacked a group of tourists, most of them Americans and Austrians. No one was injured in the attack, but the group of about 20 bandits made off with three all-terrain vehicles the tourists had hired, and about 45 million CFA francs (68_000 euros) […]

ANGLO-Dutch oil group Shell has denied all charges of human rights violations in Nigeria’s oil rich Niger-Delta region at a human rights panel hearing. Replying to allegations of human rights abuse and environmental degradation of the southern oil communities, the company said the allegation of environmental devastation seems to be exaggerated to attract attention to […]

NEARLY 7_000 people died and more than 20_000 were injured in a total of 12_000 road accidents recorded in Nigeria last year. The number of deaths recorded was up almost 15% from the 1999 figure, to 6_797 from 5_921. The number of people injured in accidents rose to 20_555 from 18_001 a year earlier, a […]

DAVID MACFARLANE and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday CHAIR a meeting a month and rake in R240_000 to R360_000 a year. That’s the jaw-dropping deal for some council members at Unisa, a university plagued by low staff morale and under severe financial stress from declining student intakes. Occupying the plushest seat on the Unisa gravy […]

Potential buyers and sellers of homes are turning to spiritual consultants to help them make the right choices Natalie Sutton Estate agents say the property market is about “location, location, location”. Business people may be concerned with the commuting distance between work and home. Young families consider schools. But for some people, ethereal influences and […]

Party officials have rushed to take control of parliamentary committees investigating the arms procurement scandal Mungo Soggot Andrew Feinstein, the African National Congress MP who has been sidelined after adopting an independent stance over the arms saga, said this week he will not resign and will instead continue to push for a thorough probe of […]

Every year countless numbers of South African children end up in hospitals with serious burn injuries. Whatever the cause of their burns, they face a life of emotional trauma that comes from severe physical disfigurement. But the reality, as Khadija Magardie found, is that they can be helped if the injuries are attended to in […]

Rehana Rossouw CROSSFIRE In a radio interview last week the African National Congress’s Smuts Ngonyama spoke gravely on SAfm about a “threat to the stability of the country”. He was not discussing allegations of impropriety in the government’s arms deal, but a CD of racist songs with limited distribution. How the music threatens the stability […]

Barry Streek South African MPs are not a particularly interesting bunch of people, judging from the latest register of interests released in Parliament. They are, however, extremely well lubricated by liquor companies. Unfortunately for the investigators probing the arms deal, none of them have declared gifts from arms contractors. The MPs are obliged to declare […]

Bronwen Jones ‘Shit” is a mild expletive, inoffensive to many. But human excrement is taboo. This most distasteful of subjects has been on my mind and in the air for several weeks now. I am acting in loco parentis for a little girl who lost most of her legs, and her parents, in a fire […]

Uneven putting surfaces and a back- to-front layout add a bit of spice to the Pilanesberg courses Andy Capostagno If you put half a dozen professional golfers in a room together they will come out in agreement on only one issue. If a golf course is too hard it destroys the game as a spectacle […]

Riaan Wolmarans CD OFTHEWEEK The Bomfunk MC’s know how to have fun. This is evident on the Finnish outfit’s debut album, In Stereo (Sony), from which the first single, Freestyler, shot them into the charts. This was followed by a string of hits like Uprocking Beats, B-Boys &Flygirls and Other Emcee’s. In Stereo is a […]

Hours before its printing works was destroyed in a bomb blast, top Zim officials vowed to silence the Daily News. Mercedes Sayagues reports State terrorism has escalated in Zimbabwe with Sunday’s bomb attack on the independent newspaper, the Daily News. Experts estimate that five TM46 anti-tank landmines fitted with limpet-type detonators destroyed the 60cm thick […]

Henk Rossouw With the Lid Off: South African Insights from Home and Abroad 1959-2000 by Todd Matshikiza and John Matshikiza (M&GBooks) In With the Lid Off, his column in the legendary Drum magazine, composer and razor-blade salesman Todd Matshikiza struts the unique language of late-1950s Sophiatown, one that blurs the distinction between jazz and writing. […]

Jaspreet Kindra Several African National Congress members have approached Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota with claims that some members of Parliament received bribes to influence the R43-billion arms procurement package. Lekota said after a media briefing in Johannesburg last week that he had directed the members to pass on any relevant information to the auditor […]

A DESPERATE, jobless woman who strangled her third baby and threw him down a pit toilet has appeared in the Nelspruit Regional Court. Marriet Myeni, 33, of Masibekela tribal trust near Malelane, told the court she was desperate when she killed her little boy on April 23 last year, because she had two other children […]