Staff Reporter

Marianne Merten ‘I want to come back [to District Six]. God spare me,” says 85-year-old Fatima Benting. But she and 1700 other families will have to wait a few more months before their new homes are ready. The dream of one of the key movers behind the return to District Six, Anwah Nagia, is that […]

Robert Kitson rugby Of all the grim picket-line images involving the England squad last week, few will fade slower than Jason Leonard, in his brown leather jacket and jeans, standing calmly in the car park of the team hotel and announcing that, yes, he was as prepared as anyone to sacrifice his international career on […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday SOUTH Africa’s judiciary gets its first chance to address the constitutionality of hate speech in a case that went before the Johannesburg High Court this week. The Islamic Unity Convention (IUC) lodged an application with the court to set aside a decision by the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) after complaints […]

CHOLERA infections in an epidemic sweeping through eastern South Africa have topped the 6000 mark as authorities reported more rivers bearing the disease following heavy rains. The toll, in KwaZulu-Natal, hit 6078 this week, with 35 deaths. Rural communities not already infected are at risk because of their dependence on river water and poor sanitation. […]

A CONDOM for women has gone on trial in Rwanda as a measure to fight sexually transmitted diseases after similar tests in neighbouring Uganda proved relatively successful. The condom, introduced by Population Services International (PSI), a US-based organisation, consists of a fine polyurethane membrane that covers all of the user’s genitalia. The condom usually sells […]

DUMISANE LUBISI, LUNGA MASUKU and KHANYISILE MAEPA, Mbabane | Thursday THE blockade of Swaziland’s international borders by pro-democracy and union activists this week has failed to disrupt the small kingdom’s economy or cross-border traffic. The protestors, from Swaziland, South African and Mozambique, have threatened to block all commercial traffic into landlocked Swaziland for three days […]

A SOUTHWEST Nigerian state has dismissed more than 5 000 staff, or one quarter of its workforce, to pay for an increase in salaries. The government of Osun State said those dismissed had either already reached retirement age or had a bad record of service. The decision to cut the workforce was taken after the […]

THE Angolan parliament has overwhelmingly approved a general amnesty law embracing both the activities of the rebel UNITA movement and petty crime, official sources reported. The amnesty follows a declaration by Angolan leader President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos on November 10 of a nationwide pardon to mark 25 years of the country’s independence. The leaders […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday NEXT week’s municipal elections in South Africa could be closer than previously expected in most cities, with the ruling party and the opposition neck and neck several major metropolitan areas, according to a new poll. The elections, which will change the face of local government, setting up 284 “mega-councils” to […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday THE South African agricultural industry is teetering on the brink of disaster after the discovery of a second outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Mpumalanga Province. Afrikaans daily newspaper Beeld reported that the newest outbreak of the disease, which has already taken on epidemic proportions in KwaZulu-Natal, was discovered in a […]

RWANDA wants to settle border disputes with Burundi, Tanzania and Uganda which it says arose through colonial powers having moved border markers. Rwanda has had frontier problems with Tanzania concerning a peninsula in the river Akagera which marks the border; with Burundi in the region of Busesera-Kirundo and the forest of Nyungwe/Kibera, and with Uganda […]

NAMIBIA’S bar council warned this week that the country’s rule of law was being undermined because a high-ranking judge refuses to force the government to free an ailing Angolan rebel. The case is pitting the Namibian judiciary against Home Affairs Minister Jerry Ekandjo over the fate of Jose Domingos Sikunda, UNITA’s representative in Nambia. The […]

RENAULT South Africa has clinched a six-year contract involving the export of catalytic converters worth R11bn to Europe. Andre Caussimon, Renault’s vice president for sub-Saharan Africa, said the project would begin in February 2001, and 14 million catalytic converters will be exported during this period. The converters are found in the exhaust systems of vehicles […]

THE US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is to unveil plans to provide the South African government with a two-year supply of its Aids medication Diflucan at no cost, a company spokesman said. Diflucan – known generically as fluconazole – is an anti-fungal drug used to treat cryptococcal meningitis, a potentially fatal brain affliction, as well as […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday SPEEDING magistrates are in a special class of their own, the Knysna Magistrates’ Court decided this week – finding a magistrate not guilty because he was speeding to get to court. According to a report in the Cape Argus, regional magistrate Marius Fourie was trapped at 129km/h in an […]

THE Namibian government and the De Beers corporation are to set up a new company to mine diamonds offshore. The new company, De Beers Marine Namibia, would immediately acquire four South African ships, the government and De Beers said in a joint statement. The new company would be owned 70% by De Beers and 30% […]

TWENTY-ONE embassies and the European Commission in Kenya have expressed concern over an increase in political violence in Kenya in recent weeks. In a statement released through the Canadian High Commission, the foreign envoys made reference to several incidents of violence at recent political rallies in various parts of the country. The disruptions came after […]

THE Kenyan parliament has approved a bill capping interest rates commercial banks can charge, which until this week were as high as 30%. Once signed into law by President Daniel arap Moi, the bill, tabled by opposition MP Joe Akech Donde, will cap interest rates at three points above that of the central bank’s 90-day […]

A FULL bench of the Cape High Court has reserved judgment in the application for amnesty launched this week by Clive Derby-Lewis and Janusz Walus, for the assassination seven years ago of South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani. Judge president John Hlophe said judgment would be given within the next couple of weeks. Earlier, […]

BELGIUM’S regional Flanders government has handed over a donation of R1m to former president Nelson Mandela to help South Africa’s Aids orphans. Mandela, in a statement, said the money would be used for Project Goelama (Tswana for nurturing and protecting the young), a Nelson Mandela Childrens’ Fund HIV/AIDS programme for orphans. The visiting Minister-President of […]

FRENCH telecommunications equipment company Alcatel said this week it had won a contract from the Tunisian National Broadcasting Company for the digitised audio-video transmission of the Mediterranean Games, to be held in Tunisia in October 2001. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Alcatel will supply infrastructure which will allow 12 regional radio stations […]

TWENTY people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo after eating a poisonous kind of manioc. The people died last week on the island of Idjwi after eating a type of manioc whose pulp contains a high concentration of cyanic acid. Six people survived the incident. “The victims probably neglected to soak the manioc […]

THE driver and co-driver of a truck which hit an electrical pole near the Northern Cape town of Warrenton, leaving numerous homes without power, have been arrested on a range of charges, including driving without a licence, police said. A minor riot then ensued when police tried to stop local residents from helping themselves to […]

A FORMER senior official in the Rwandan army has pleaded not guilty to 12 counts ranging from genocide to rape in connection with the deaths of 12 Belgian peacekeepers and the country’s prime minister. The indictment handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda against Captain Innocent Sagahutu also accuses him of acting in […]

CAPE Town’s most popular tourist beaches are in the grip of a crime wave, with increasing numbers of bathers reporting that thieves are making off with their belongings while they swim, police said this week. “It has become an organised crime in itself. We now have thieves going down to the beach and watching people […]

REFUGEE camps in northwestern Tanzania, brimming with the constant influx of Burundians and Rwandans fleeing unrest in their countries, are starting to overflow, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said. The dire situation has forced the UNHCR to reopen an old camp used to accommodate refugees fleeing the genocide in Rwanda and closed since 1996. In […]

A DOOR-to-door search for orphans near White River in Mpumalanga has ended with 254 children being recommended for foster care. The department of social services’ Operation Nakekela (“take care”) focused on Masoyi tribal trust for two weeks after social workers reported that many children were living alone at home after their parents died of diseases […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday WHILE South Africa’s corruption-busting superhero Judge Willem Heath has had his wings clipped by the Constitutional Court, early indications are that his Special Investigative Unit (SIU) will continue its work. The Heath Commission has recovered about R314m for the state since it began its work three years ago, but Heath […]

THE South African navy has rescued three fisherman off stormswept Gough Island in the southern Atlantic after they had spent nine days days marooned on a beach with the body of a drowned shipmate. The fishermen – all South Africans – were plucked off the island by helicopter when bad weather lashing the island briefly […]

THE SA policing system needed an overhaul to pull it into line with international standards, President Thabo Mbeki said this week. Mbeki said the police’s crime intelligence capacity was “very weak” in the face of rampant organised crime. While an improved intelligence capacity was required, increased visible policing on the streets and the willingness of […]

THREE commando members accused of forcing a Northern Province youth to eat his own faeces have pleaded not guilty in the Potgietersrus Magistrate’s Court. Christiaan Jacobus Human, Gert Johannes Pretorius and Hermanus Johannes Nel are out on R1 000 bail each. They were arrested after David Maimela, 20, was beaten on October 6 and forced […]

AGENTS of late Nigerian military ruler Sani Abacha were behind a bombing in 1996 used to kill and discredit the opposition, a retired senior policeman said this week. Security agents planted a car bomb which killed the security chief of Lagos airport security and then arrested opposition leaders, including former finance minister Olu Falae and […]