Staff Reporter

NIGERIAN security agents have arrested the chief accountant working for late military ruler Sani Abacha. Ibrahim Al-Amin was arrested at his home in Kano, northern Nigeria, and driven to the capital Abuja for interrogation, said the family member. Al-Amin is the main accountant working for the Abacha family and closely linked to the family’s financial […]

SOUTH Africa’s summer holiday road death toll has reached 331 – the highest in the last two years on the country’s roads. The highest provincial death toll so far is in the Eastern Cape, where 55 people have been killed in 30 fatal crashes. KwaZulu-Natal has seen 54 fatalities, Gauteng 47 and the Western Cape […]

MARIANNE MERTEN, Cape Town | Monday THE controversial delays around establishing a statutory body to distribute national lottery proceeds has taken another twist with the allocation of emergency funding to some cash-strapped organisations. Although non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have welcomed the pre-Christmas emergency relief, some have questioned the legality of the once-off disbursement and say government […]

EMSIE FERREIRA, Cape Town | Monday SOUTH Africa is luring tourists to view the whimsical side of a country known for its beaches and bush – visits to houses haunted by aristocratic ghosts and audiences with a rain queen. Cape Town, if the brochures are to be believed, has several dozen ghosts that spook the […]

A 12-year-old Egyptian boy has been killed while trying to protect his dog from his cousin, also 12, who was striking the animal with an iron bar, police said. The boy had been waiting for his cousin at home. When the cousin arrived, the dog jumped on him and the cousin warded the dog off […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday THE African Mineral and Energy Forum (AMEF), which recently signed a black empowerment accord with the established fuel industry giants, has appealed to government to unlock an alleged monopoly in the supply of jet fuel at Johannesburg International Airport. Accusing South African Petroleum Industry (SAPIA) members of being “obstructive” on […]

UP to 40 civilians have been killed in a wave of massacres across Algeria attributed to armed Islamists, in the latest bloody turn to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Fifteen travellers were killed west of the Algerian capital late on Sunday when an armed group opened fire on a bus. On Saturday at least […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Monday ZIMBABWE’S farm invasions and current economic slump have left the country “extremely vulnerable” to an epidemic of the deadly cattle anthrax disease, which has already killed nine people and hospitalised more than 600 since it was first detected two weeks ago. British Airways Travel Clinic medical director Dr Andrew Jamieson […]

AN Mpumalanga man accused of killing his wife and hacking her genitals has applied for legal aid. The 31-year-old mechanic was not asked to plead. He was arrested after his 25-year-old wife’s mutilated body was found naked near the N4 highway at Ngodwana on Monday. The woman’s identity is being withheld until her family has […]

A CONGOLESE human rights association has expressed concern about the alleged extra-judicial execution of a Congolese army commander and dozens of his colleagues by the Kinshasa regime. The Congolese Association for the Defence of Human Rights (Azadho) has accused President Laurent Kabila’s government of having executed Commander Masasu Lindaga and 36 of his colleagues early […]

A NURSING sister who stole a heart monitoring machine valued at R75000 is still working for the Northern Province health department. Eunice Nthlane, 38, of Mokopane Hospital near Potgietersrus was found guilty in September of stealing the electro cardiograph (ECG) machine and was fined R2000 and given a suspended 12-month jail term. An internal disciplinary […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday INTERNATIONAL financier George Soros has criticised South Africa’s policy on Zimbabwe and launched a fierce attack on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in an interview published on Sunday. “Mugabe has poisoned the neighbourhood,” the Hungarian-born philanthropist told the Sunday Independent. South African President Thabo Mbeki’s policy of “quiet diplomacy” towards its […]

SOUTH Africa’s defence ministry is probing a report that an army instructor ordered soldiers to fire on targets depicting President Thabo Mbeki and other leaders. Sam Mkhwanazi, spokesman for Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota, announced the probe after members of the National Ceremonial Guard, who train at Pretoria’s Thabo-Tswane base, told a Sunday newspaper of the […]

RELATIVES of King Mswati III of Swaziland have threatened to bewitch 50 women who bared their buttocks at the King’s older brother, Prince Maguga Dlamini Maguga. The women were protesting against the King’s appointing Maguga, 64, as chief of Macetjeni outside Manzini, ousting two other chiefs and evicting their subjects. Maguga’s uncle, Ncutfu Mongomezulu, said […]

AT LEAST 25 prostitutes under the age of 16 have been arrested in raids on two Johannesburg hotels. Police said 13 adult prostitutes were also arrested in the raids at the Europa Hotel in Hillbrow and the Rosettenville Hotel in Rosettenville. The child prostitutes were taken to a place of safety and notices of prosecution […]

A 19-year-old Willowvale man is recovering in Butterworth Hospital after he amputated his penis earlier this month, hospital sources said. It is alleged the man circumcised himself after smoking dagga. “His condition has improved, though he has lost his penis,” a hospital official said. Six other circumcision initiates were reported to be in a satisfactory […]

THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) this week granted amnesty to safety and liaison department permanent secretary Dumisani Mafu on eight counts of murder. Mafu, 43, was also granted amnesty for a number of other offences, including five counts of attempted murder, malicious damage to property and unlawful possession of firearms, ammunition and explosives. In […]

CLAIRE KEETON, Pretoria | Saturday THE UN refugee agency is having to cut back its Africa programmes because funds from donor governments are insufficient, its southern Africa director said this week. “The UN budget for Kosovo was 90% funded. Africa only got 60% of its total budget. This means cutting down on programmes,” said Ilunga […]

EIGHT Angolans drowned while trying illegally to cross the Orange River from southern Namibia into South Africa at the weekend, Namibian police said. The eight were among 14 young Angolans who tried to enter South Africa legally through the southern Noordoewer border post but were turned back because they did not have visas. They then […]

FOUR people have been arrested in three separate drug busts on the same flight from Sao Paolo, Brazil. South African police arrested a Venezuelan mother and son at Johannesburg’s airport after 12kg of cocaine was found in their hand luggage, and a 40-year-old South African man who had 3kg of cocaine in his possession. A […]

A NIGERIAN man charged with cannibalism after being found under a Lagos bridge surrounded by body parts has been pronounced unfit to stand trial. Clifford ‘the cannibal’ Orji is suffering from paranoid-schizophrenia, a psychologist told the Ikeja High Court. Orji was charged with the murder of several people and “misconduct with regard to corpses”. At […]

A NAMIBIAN fishing trawler has recovered wreckage and personal effects believed to be from the 1997 mid-air crash between US and German military planes which killed 33 people. German and US military experts will be called to Namibia to identify the items caught in the trawler’s net near the crash site, at sea off the […]

CHRIS MCKENZIE and JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Friday MPUMALANGA’S controversial new R630m legislature is illegal and its construction has destroyed at least three protected plant species. The complex is almost complete, but it has still not been approved by the Nelspruit City Council or the national Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. Meanwhile, forensic investigators […]

MARIANNE MERTEN, Cape Town | Friday POLYGRAPH tests, random searches of cricketers’ rooms and luggage, a duty to report improper approaches and undercover stings to test players’ honesty are among the suggestions from the King Commission of Inquiry into Cricket Match-fixing. Proposed measures include an UCB-controlled accreditation system to contact players, the monitoring of telephone […]

Turner Prize winner Steve McQueen breezed through Cape Town to launch an exhibition of his major film installations Lorna Ferguson With the demise of the Johannesburg Biennale there have been no mechanisms in place to bring internationally renowned contemporary artists to South Africa to invigorate and inform our art scene. Which makes the appearance of […]

Thebe Mabanga in your ear Well, here’s to a year that was kicked off by a bug that was so menacing, we would not have the pleasure of listening to radio were it to materialise. Of course there are times when listening to radio is not such a pleasure and one cannot help but wish […]

Ilda Jacobs and Justin Arenstein An underground organisation of racist South African exiles is using the Internet to recruit supporters and plan for the return of “civilised” white rule to South Africa and Zimbabwe. The London-based Springbok Club slams “gutless” white liberals for betraying their race by “toadying” up to the African National Congress, and […]

Glenda Daniels In the most significant legal attack yet on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) amnesty process, the families of activists slain by Craig Williamson are applying for a judicial review of the pardon given to the superspy. Relatives of Jeanette Schoon, her six-year-old daughter Katryn and Ruth First who were all blown up […]

Peter Preston London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd (Chatto & Windus) What is London? The disaster of the Dome, the grunge of traffic, the cost, the crime, the desolation living rough beneath its arches. Familiar fodder from familiar headlines. Moan, moan, moan (as my Spanish grandson says when he comes to visit). But here, by […]

Neal Collinssoccer Bafana Bafana captain Lucas Radebe suffered the indignity of being dropped by Leeds last Saturday just 48 hours before being asked to pick up his Fifa Fair Play award in Rome and already talk of a move to Tottenham Hotspur is gaining momentum. With Radebe axed to accommodate David O’Leary’s record signing Rio […]

Medals galore at the Olympics. A world-beating rugby team. A hat-trick of Test victories. England has waited a long time for sporting success and now it seems it won’t stop coming Richard Williams Perhaps the best thing about a prolonged period of humiliation on the sports field is that it has taught the English not […]

Nicky Blumenfeld It was really surprising to discover that coming to perform in South Africa for the first time is not particularly significant for Burning Spear. He says: “It feels good, as good as if I were going to Australia or Japan or Europe, or anywhere else in the world … it’s the same feelings […]