Staff Reporter

MARIA Ramos, the national Treasury’s director, has reaffirmed the government’s commitment to execute the initial public offering (IPO) for Telkom, the telecoms utility, by the end of the year, Business Report said. “We are working like crazy to make sure this deal is executed in the last quarter of this year. The deadline we gave […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday A REPORT warning that Aids would become the leading cause of death among teachers this year was deeply flawed and based on questionable assumptions, Education Minister Kader Asmal said on Sunday. Speaking on the SABC programme Newsmaker, Asmal said the report was not a department document, and that he rejected […]

OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Johannesburg | Monday THE ANC has lashed out at Heath Special Investigating Unit head Willem Heath for “being in cahoots with opposition parties”, and says it will oppose his appointment to probe the states R43bn arms deal. While there will be more clarity today regarding Heath’s involvement or not in the arms deal […]

A Malawian family is searching for a witchdoctor who advised their 26-year-old son to have sex with his mother if he wanted to be a successful businessman. The son, James Mushango, went mad after he failed to carry out the witchdoctor’s instructions. Mushango, a small-scale businessman who bought fish in Mangochi and sold them in […]

SIZWE SAMAYENDE, Nelspruit | Monday MPUMALANGA’s international safari parks are under threat following an order that they shoot all lions and other game infected by tuberculosis. The private 15_000 hectare Ligwalagwala Conservancy near Malelane has already been forced to kill 12 infected lions and claims to have lost 80% of its tourists as a result. […]

A NIGERIAN traditional chief, his wife and four others have become the first to be charged under a new law against sex trafficking, a newspaper reported on Sunday. Chief Saka Omo-Lawal Osula, a prominent chief in Benin City, appeared in court last Tuesday alongside his wife and the four others, the newspaper National Interest said. […]

AN Egyptian court on Sunday ordered the retrial of 31 businessmen and politicians who were given jail sentences last year in the biggest corruption scandal in two decades. The cessation court annulled the sentences linked to $470m dollars in fraudulent loans after defence lawyers argued that police had pursued their clients without Central Bank approval, […]

SUDAN?S Islamist government refuses to ratify an international treaty on women’s rights as it contradicts national traditions, President Omar al-Beshir said in remarks published on Sunday. Beshir told a rally held near here Friday to celebrate his re-election as president last month that he found parts of the treaty “contradicted Sudanese values and traditions,” the […]

THE managing editor of a newspaper in Congo has been arrested over an article calling for the overthrow of “the dictator” Denis Sassou Nguesso, police said late Saturday. Publication of Richard Ntsana’s Flambeau newspaper was also suspended on Saturday as Ntsana was taken to the central police station in Brazzaville for a “hearing,” police said […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Monday CAPE Towns Anglican Church Archbishop, the Reverend Njongonkulu Ndungane, has spoken out against a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) plan to get big business to contribute to a fund for victims of apartheid, saying it was governments responsibility. Ndungane was reacting to a statement by TRC compensation and rehabilitation […]

TWO pet chimpanzees from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo were transferred to the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage in Zambia on Sunday because of fears that their owner would not be able to care for them. Brenda Santon from Friends of the Chimpanzee in South Africa said Sinki, a seven-year-old male, and Kambo, a five-year-old female, […]

CAPE Verde’s opposition African Independence Party (PAICV) claimed victory at Sunday’s general election, but the early official results showed a race too close to call after a day marked mainly by chaos. “According to the data we have received, we are already certain of victory,” PAICV campaign director Adao Richa said. With the vote count […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maputo | Saturday THE Zambezi river has risen to worrying levels, prompting fears of severe flooding in central Mozambique, an official said Friday, about a year after devastating floods in the southern African country. “We are now getting worried with the latest developments in the Zambezi river”, said Joao Zamissa, head of planning […]

THEY may be jobless and poor, but a group of Mpumalanga women are about to build spacious low-cost homes after creating a kitty to boost their State housing grant. The 180 members of the Vukuzimele Community Project near Nelspruit will build homes of 56 square metres – 20 square metres bigger than a standard low-cost […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Saturday FIVE of the nine provinces in South Africa have reported cholera cases since the start of the initial outbreak in KwaZulu-Natal five months ago, the national Department of Health said on Friday. The outbreak in KwaZulu-Natal has resulted in 64 deaths and nearly 18 000 people have been infected by […]

AN Egyptian labourer had a heart attack and died Saturday from the excitement of laying his hands on a windfall of money he had been awaiting for around a decade, police in southern Egypt said. Ramadan Abu Seif, 45, had just picked up a cheque for 9_000 Egyptian pounds (around $2_400 dollars) in compensation from […]

NIGERIAN President Olusegun Obasanjo has ordered the removal of judges indicted by a investigation panel as a part of measures to clean up the country’s judiciary. The panel was set up by late dictator General Sani Abacha in 1993 to probe the judiciary and submitted its report a year later, recommending that some judges be […]

BENIN’S governmental communications authority has warned journalists about a host of things they will not be allowed to publish during campaigning for a March presidential poll in the west African country. “The role of a journalist at such sensitive times is not to be a harbinger of bad tidings and even less to play the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday THE man in charge of flight safety in South Africa has been found guilty of breaking the very laws he was hired to enforce, the Sunday Times reports. Two independent investigations have found that the head of the Civil Aviation Authority, Trevor Abrahams, flew an aircraft without the proper qualifications, […]

NIGERIA’S President Olusegun Obasanjo should press visiting Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori to write off Nigeria’s debts and urge investment, a leading newspaper said. “Rather than the fragmented grants given to Nigeria from time to time, Nigeria’s debts should be written off in order to give Nigeria an economic breathing space,” the newspaper This Day […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | A SOUTH African actor on Saturday brought a controversial consignment of generic HIV and Aids drugs into the country, which will be used by the Cape-based Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). Morne Visser, was met by a an emotional group of activists at the Cape Town International Airport as he brought […]

POLICE in Zimbabwe shot dead a six-year-old boy asleep in the back seat of his father’s car while they drove home on the outskirts of the capital, local media reported on Saturday. The shooting in Chitungwiza town, which took place earlier this week, was the second time Zimbabwe police allegedly killed innocent people in less […]

THE South African driver of a tour bus in which 26 British nationals and a local tour guide were killed in an accident in Mpumalanga in 1999 will be tried in the Lydenburg Regional Court on a charge of culpable homicide and an alternative charge of reckless driving between April 2 and 6. Phillip Dube, […]

SOUTH Africa’s high-tech mobile health train, the Transnet-Phelophepa Health Care Train, begins its annual 36-week delivery of health services to remote rural areas across the country next week. The train provides services in basic health care, health education, dental and eye care as well as psychological counselling. Spectacles and sophisticated eye tests cost only R30 […]

THE death toll on South Africa’s roads since the start of the new year reached 137 on Saturday, the road safety campaign Arrive Alive said. The total of road deaths since the holiday season began in December has now reached 922. A total of 785 people – 171 fewer than in December 1999 – were […]

MALAWI’S opposition lawmakers gave a standing ovation to three legislators who were expelled from the governing party when they entered parliament on Thursday. Former cabinet minister Brown Mpinganjira, who is facing corruption charges, and his allies Peter Chupa and Greshan Naura were expelled by the United Democratic Front (UDF) for alleged rebellion. They were greeted […]

MALAWI’s largest passenger association has rejected a government probe into the country’s deadliest bus accident yet, and demanded an independent commission of inquiry.Twelve commuters were killed and scores more injured when an overloaded Shire Bus Line double-decker exploded 40km from the capital Lilongwe on December 12. The bus was reportedly carrying 200 passengers at the […]

The African National Congress won resoundingly in the Tshwane Metropolitan Council election last month.

According to the Rationalisation of Local Government Affairs Act road closing and access restricting measures can be granted by a municipality under the following conditions: l The applicant must justify a need for such closure by providing crime statistics in the area concerned. l The applicant must outline security measures that have been used (bobbies […]

Jill Waterman DANCE The Dance Factory in the Newtown Cultural Precinct, Johannesburg, is a buzzing dance centre for 26 aspiring young artists. The December vacation has been a special dance training time for this youth group, as they have been working daily on a contemporary dance production of Oliver. The dance theatre work is based […]

The likes of Springer have built empires by exposing the exhibitionist in all of us and <em>Survivor</em> was no different.