Letter to the Editor — Racism is essential to human behaviour.
Marianne Merten Several Western Cape residents in witness protection who are refusing to leave the province despite the Christmas murder of two state witnesses face the choice: relocate or leave the programme. The head of the Office for Witness Protection, Director Piet Kleynhans, said a decision on this handful of witnesses to Cape criminal trials, […]
JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Newcastle | Friday KWAZULU-Natal wildlife rangers have been forced to kill an aggressive bull elephant after it refused to be driven back into the park from which it had escaped. The shooting follows the first large-scale escape from the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi park by elephants since they were introduced to in 1980. The tusks were […]
Ian Penman Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist 1968-76 by Hunter S Thompson, edited by Douglas Brinkley (Bloomsbury) As a writer bin all that “cultural icon” stuff, all the cartoon strips and cocaine blizzards and Colorado screamin’ it is hard to see Hunter S Thompson as much more than […]
SIX Moroccan fishermen have gone missing after their small boats were swamped in heavy seas off Morocco’s Atlantic coast, regional maritime officials said. The men’s vessels had sunk on Tuesday during foul weather conditions near the port of Sidi Ifni. Another 36 fishermen who had experienced trouble in the same area were rescued by a […]
Thomas and the Magic Railroad. A mixture of live action, animation and modelling, Thomas and the Magic Railroad is an Americanised version of the British TV series based on the Reverend W Awdry’s children’s books. It’s whimsical stuff about the interaction of the railway (sorry, railroad) systems of a real community and a magical one […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Blantyre | Friday THE high-profile trial of a former Malawian cabinet minister facing corruption charges has opened amid tight security and high tension. Brown Mpinganjira, who had been widely tipped to succeed President Bakili Muluzi as leader of the governing United Democratic Front (UDF), faces up to 12 years in prison for his […]
Neal Collins soccer England’s bleak midwinter will enjoy a traditional post-New Year lift this weekend with the arrival of the Football Association Cup third round, comfortably the best weekend of mud-and-guts football to be found anywhere in the world. This is when the top clubs join the long road to erm … well, it was […]
OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Johannesburg | Friday FEARS that the cholera epidemic ravaging KwaZulu-Natal might spread to the rest of South Africa have heightened with reports of the disease in Gauteng, Mpumalanga and in neighbouring Swaziland. At least six people have died in Swaziland after the epidemic crossed into the tiny kingdom from KwaZulu-Natal, where 57 people […]
Some South Africans get so much from polarisation that they cannot imagine a future without it.
He’s the next president of the United States but George W Bush’s career details do not go beyond first base Simon Kuper ‘I never dreamed about being president,” says George W Bush. “When I was growing up, I wanted to be Willie Mays.” The legendary outfielder is the man Bush usually names as his childhood […]
THE first passenger train in over two years this week travelled along a key railway line in the central African state of Congo. The train on the 512km Congo-Ocean line, linking the Atlantic port of Pointe-Noire to the capital Brazzaville, carried 396 passengers for an overnight run that took 12 hours. Freight services on the […]
TUNISIA’S communications ministry has cut Internet subscription rates in half, and says privatisation of the telecommunications sector will probably begin this year. Monthly charges for subscribing to the Internet for a family dropped from 21 dinars ($15) to 10 dinars ($7), while professional subcribers saw their fees reduced from about $33 to $14 a month, […]
SOUTH African security guards have ended an often-violent 17-day strike after five mainly black employer organisations reached an agreement with nine unions. A mediator said the agreement provided for reducing the working week to 50 hours, a minimum salary of R1 300 a month, maternity benefits, the establishment of a commission to investigate HIV/Aids in […]
OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Johannesburg | Thursday WORLD Health Organisation (WHO) experts will visit South Africa this week to help contain a cholera epidemic that has already claimed 53 lives in KwaZulu-Natal and threatens to spill over into neighbouring provinces. The move comes a day after health authorities in Mpumalanga confirmed that a cholera case at Machadodorp […]
THE man caught on film stabbing and mugging a teenager in Sea Point, Cape Town, earlier this week has handed himself over to the police. The 35-year old suspect gave himself up at the Woodstock police after police had recovered the vehicle used in the attack. A SABC cameraman captured the brutal attack on 17-year […]
THE International Monetary Fund has given final approval to a three-year loan totalling $76m for Niger to help that country’s anti-poverty efforts. The IMF’s executive board acted after the World Bank last week approved Niger’s interim poverty reduction plan. Per capita income in Niger has fallen by 40% over the last two decades, the IMF […]
OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Cape Town | Thursday THE family of a British teenager watched in horror as she was crushed to death by the cable car mechanism on Table Mountain, moments after she had apparently ignored warnings not to enter a restricted area. Cara Weaver, 14 – described by family members as fun-loving and sporty – […]
AN audio and lighting engineer faces possible imprisonment for allegedly insulting Zimbabwe’s president during a holiday music show. State prosecutors said Stephen Schadendorf, 35, turned spotlights on a portrait of President Robert Mugabe during a song construed as critical of Mugabe, prompting thousands of music fans to cheer and clamor for Mugabe’s ousting. Schadendorf was […]
A LARGE crowd packed into an Islamic court in northern Nigeria to watch as two men found guilty of drinking alcohol were given 80 lashes each. The crowd burst into chants of “Allahu Akbar” (“God is Great”) as the men, 22-year-old Nugu Abdullahi and 63-year-old Sa’adu Aminu, were given their punishment. Since the introduction of […]
MORE than 100 suspected rapists were arrested during December in Gauteng after police stepped up action against sex offenders. Police said most of the victims were children who had been attacked by a family member or someone close to them. In the past four months, 14 rapists have been sentenced to between 10 and 25 […]
THE Gambian government has denied claims by a United Nations panel that it is involved in trafficking so-called conflict diamonds, thereby aiding rebels in Angola and Sierra Leone. The panel fingered a number of west African countries, including Gambia, for providing a conduit for diamonds being used by rebels to fund their armed actions in […]
THIRTY-TWO fighters of the Angolan rebel movement UNITA have been freed under a government amnesty announced on November 10, the eve of the 25th anniversary of independence in the war-torn southern African country. UNITA, led by Jonas Savimbi, rejected the amnesty offer, but small numbers of rebel fighters have surrendered their weapons and handed themselves […]
THE Zimbabwe government has laid off more than 2_000 civil servants in ongoing moves to streamline the public sector, the state workers union said. Thousands of workers from the education ministry were handed letters of termination when they turned up for work this week, the Government Workers Association (GWA) said. Although civil servants were notified […]
A KENYAN teenager killed herself on New Year’s Eve when her parents refused to allow her to attend a performance by Jamaican pop star Shaggy, according to reports. Nation FM radio station said the teenager, a resident of the western Nairobi suburb of Kangemi, took an overdose of anti-malaria tablets and died on the way […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maputo | Sunday MORE than 150_000 Mozambicans mostly peasant farmers – are facing devastating floods for the second time in 11 months following the opening of sluice gates on the Kariba Dam in neighbouring Zambia. Mozambique is still recovering from massive floods in February and March, which killed 700, destroyed the homes or […]
THE government of Mauritius plans to turn the country into a free trade zone for the information technology (IT) sector, Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth has announced. “The year 2001 will be marked by the relaunch of the Mauritian economy,” he said. “We want to make Mauritius an information technology free trade zone with digital parks.” […]
WOMEN’S rights in Ethiopia, a predominantly patriarchal society, are set to improve with the coming into effect of a new law which, among other measures, targets forced marriages. Under the Family Law, which the Daily Monitor newspaper on Tuesday reported had been promulgated Monday after being approved by parliament in July, the minimum age for […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Wednesday AS holidaymakers and migrant workers start leaving KwaZulu-Natal at the end of the holiday season health authorities fear the spread of the cholera epidemic which has claimed 53 lives in the province. The pandemic which broke out in northern KwaZulu-Natal five months ago, has infected 12 715 people. Fears about […]
A LANDFALL in the ancient Egyptian city of Abydos has unearthed a cemetery of animal mummies that archaeologists hope could give clues to new religious cults in the Ptolemaic period, officials said this week. Eight tiny gold-plated limestone coffins containing what are thought to be mummified rats dating back to 300 B.C. have already been […]
TWO Namibian nationals claim that Angolan UNITA rebels abducted and tortured them and seven other villagers, killing three, a human rights organisation said. Daniel Ndeluudila, 54, and Simeon Hamulo, 23, told the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) that they and the other villagers were abducted on December 25 in northeast Namibia and taken across […]
A DEUTSCHE Telekom-led consortium has concluded a $120m deal to buy a 35% stake in Tanzania’s state-owned telephone monopoly and take over management control, a government representative said this week. Detecon, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, along with Dutch group Mobile Systems International Cellular will pay the amount directly to the Tanzania Telecommunication Company in […]