Staff Reporter

MORE than 300 delegates from 51 countries, including nine in Africa, have gathered at the University of Cape Town to attend the 17th International Seaweed Symposium being hosted by the university and the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. The theme of the conference is “Seaweed: Science and Technology for Sustainable Industry”. The world seaweed […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Abidjan | Tuesday A YEAR after a Kenya Airways Airbus plunged into the sea off Abidjan, killing 169 people, investigators are no closer to determining the cause of the accident, blaming the delays on a faulty black box and inaccessible wreckage. The plane crashed into the sea on January 30, 2000, two minutes […]

MATTHEW LEE, Washington | Tuesday THE Democratic Republic of Congos (DRC) undemocratically elected president, the fresh-faced Joseph Kabila (29), is to visit the United States this week for talks here and at the United Nations. Kabila, who succeeded his murdered father as president only last week, is to begin his two-day visit in Washington on […]

JAPANESE Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori has told Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos that Japan will continue economic aid, and would extend assistance to build major hospitals, train skilled workers and improve medical facilities in the countryside. Dos Santos requested Japan’s further aid to upgrade infrastructures in his country, including roads, hydro-electric power plants and […]

SCORES of Ethiopian refugees living in Sudan are protesting to the UN High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR) over a plan for them to return home or lose their refugee status. The group objects to a decision by the UNHCR to deprive them of their refugee status because the reasons that drove them from Ethiopia vanished […]

AN Ethiopian flag raised on the moon in July 1971 by US astronaut James B. Irwin has been officially returned to President Negasso Gidada. Irwin’s widow Mary handed the green, yellow and red flag over at a ceremony at the national palace at the weekend. The Apollo 15 mission carried the flags of all members […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Gaborone | Tuesday SOUTH African Marietta Bosch, who has been on death row in Gaborone Central Prison for a year, has lost her appeal in the Botswana Appeal Court against her conviction for murder. The sentence was confirmed by the Botswana Appeals Court. Bosch’s last resort before being hanged for murder is to […]

PRESIDENT Sam Nujoma has urged young Namibians to refrain from alcohol abuse to avoid the spread of the deadly HIV/Aids pandemic, the Namibian Press Agency reported. Addressing over 2_000 residents at the Rundu Sports Stadium, Nujoma said children in every house should be informed about the dangers of the HIV/Aids scourge that was “wiping out […]

LAWYERS for the sons of late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha have asked Luxembourg’s administrative tribunal to lift a freeze on assets which he had on deposit in the grand duchy. If the request is approved, some 670m euros ($616.4m) in Abacha’s name at the Warburg Bank in Luxembourg would go to his two sons. Abacha, […]

THE UN World Food Programme says 100_000 people are suffering from malnutrition in central and northern Burundi, calling the situation there “catastrophic”. The WFP said the northeast Karuzi province was worst hit, with 24% of 360 000 inhabitants malnourished. Fourteen percent of these people were suffering from severe malnutrition. A therapeutic nutrition centre in the […]

GUINEA Bissau troops have killed 30 Senegalese rebels, says President Kumba Yala, adding that he deplored the attack prompted by a false report over state radio. The attack at the border between the two countries followed a false alarm broadcast over state radio that the rebels were planning an offensive against Guinea-Bissau army positions, Yala […]

THE government of Niger has banned hunting throughout the country in a bid to resuscitate wildlife populations. Environment Minister Issoufou Assoumane said the ban was necessary to “allow the reconstitution of the fauna.” In the past decade, the desert zones in northern Niger have become hunting playgrounds for Persian Gulf princes, who arrive for expeditions […]

EGYPT, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan signed a billion-dollar deal on Sunday for the transport and sale of natural gas between the four countries. The agreement stipulates the creation of two companies. One, which will be called Orient Company, will build gas pipelines across the Mediterranean to transport initially some 12m cubic metres of natural gas […]

THE national death toll from cholera has reached 85 after the epidemic spread beyond KwaZulu-Natal after breaking out in August. In addition to the 78 people who died from the disease in KwaZulu-Natal, six people have died from it in the Northern Province and one in Gauteng. More than 28 000 people have been infected […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Zanzibar | Monday TANZANIAN police have battled opposition supporters on the semi-autonomous island of Pemba in Zanzibar for a second day, arresting hundreds of people in bloody clashes that have left 32 people dead. At least six of the dead were police officers, according to a toll compiled by reporters based on witness […]

POLICE have identified another 89 dud computers in a scam in which over 700 computers with pirated software worth R11m were sold to the Mpumalanga government. Police are investigating the Pretoria-based company Keystone Information Systems in connection with selling the computers to the province’s departments of education, health and finance. Keystone bought defective computers cheaply, […]

A 76-year-old date farmer in Egypt who has fathered 69 children wants to get married again – for the eighth time – so he can have more children. Qaddour Hakim says all he wants is a pretty woman about 20 years old who loves children – and is willing to live in a Saharan oasis […]

ILDA JACOBS, Washington DC | Monday SOUTH African opera student Abel Moeng, from Thlabane village in North West Province, has been selected from candidates worldwide for the Arleen Auger Memorial Scholarship in New York City – and will attend a voice practical with the world famous Luciano Pavarotti in February. “He has it, I just […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Gaborone | Monday SOUTH African Marietta Bosch, who has been on Death Row in Botswana for a year, will know her fate on Tuesday when a verdict is handed down in her appeal against her conviction for murder and the subsequent death sentence. Bosch, 50, was sentenced to death in the Botswana High […]

POLICE have seized 176kg of dagga, estimated to be worth more than R167 000, near Ventersburg. 11 bags of dagga were found inside a car driven by a 48-year-old Odendaalsrus man after two policemen noticed an over-loaded Ford Sierra stuffed with bags on the Senekal-Ventersburg road. The vehicle sped off and a chase ensued. One […]

THE national president of Benin’s voodoo cult, Sossa Guedehoungue, has died in a Cotonou clinic after a short illness. The 88-year-old Guedehoungue was in 1991 designated president of the cult by the country’s voodoo priests. Benin is the cradle of voodoo, with 61% of the population initiates or faithful to the traditional religion. The voodooists […]

MICROSOFT founder Bill Gates expanded his philanthropic activities on Saturday, as his foundation announced a $100m grant to help develop vaccines to fight AIDS. We should remember that a death from AIDS in Africa brings with it just as much pain as a death of one of our own family or friends,” said the billionaire […]

TWO Witbank men, aged 24 and 21, have been arrested in connection with having sex with schoolgirls younger than 16. Johan Theodorus Marx, 24, and Arnold Steven Wright, 21, were not asked to plead in the Witbank Magistrate’s Court. They were arrested after police responded to a tip-off that the men allegedly had relationships with […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki is expected to visit Kinshasa on Tuesday to meet the new leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a foreign ministry representative said on the weekend. Mbeki, who is in Switzerland to attend the annual economic summit in Davos, will make a stopover in […]

A NORTHERN Province community that invaded a military base two years ago has threatened to re-invade it after failing to get a response to a land claim they lodged five years ago. Seven of the 1 000 Gumbu community members who marched to the Madimbo Corridor military base in September 1999 were arrested and are […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Allahabad, India | Saturday THE Dalai Lama, the supreme spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, has urged Christians and Muslims to accept that there is more than one valid religion. “Christianity and Islam have a very strong concept of one religion. I think that should change. I hope that will change,” he told reporters […]

A SMALL group of demonstrators gathered outside the Belfast Magistrate’s Court in Mpumalanga when a local businessman, his friend and a widow appeared on various charges of child sex abuse. The demonstrators placed placards against the court’s fence, some of which read: “No bail for child abusers”. The widow is accused of forcing her son, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Sunday AN explosion went off early on Sunday at the building housing the printing press of Zimbabwe’s only independent daily, staff at the paper and witnesses said. The blast happened at about 1:30 a.m. Sunday according to residents in Harare’s Southerton neighbourhood. The blast came two days after militant war veteran […]

SWAZILAND has accused the international community of ignoring appeals for aid as more than 13 000 people in its rural areas face starvation. The agriculture ministry said repeated calls for emergency food aid for people whose crops were damaged by devastating floods in early 2000 had gone unheeded. Analysts blame the country?s inability to feed […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Davos, Switzerland | Saturday FRUSTRATED with what he sees as the failure of western aid programs in Africa, South African President Thabo Mbeki has emerged as one of the architects of a plan to boost private sector investment and develop more home-grown solutions to the continent’s deep economic and social problems. Mbeki and […]

MALAWI President Bakili Muluzi has denied weeks of public speculation that he intends changing the country’s constitution and running for a third term in office in 2004. Malawi information minister Clement Stambuli said Muluzi would honour existing constitutional restrictions limiting presidents to two consecutive five-year terms. Stambuli tried last week to defuse growing civil society […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kinshasa | Saturday THE Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) new president, Joseph Kabila, has boosted hopes for an end to his country’s complex civil war, vowing in his inaugural address to work for peace – after which, he said, democratic elections would take place. General Kabila took the oath of office on Friday, […]