Staff Reporter

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday AFRICAN National Congress (ANC) chief whip Tony Yengeni has pushed for a halt in the corruption probe into South Africa’s multi-billion rand arms purchase deal, government sources have claimed in a news report. In response, spokesmen for the ruling ANC denied there had been any attempt to stop the “super” […]

PRESIDENT Abdelaziz Bouteflika has agreed to a 33% rise in Algeria’s minimum wage and a 15% increase in civil service salaries from January 1, officials said. The increases, however, fell short of levels agreed in talks among the government, trade unions and employers last week – a 66% hike in the minimum wage, and a […]

OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Cape Town | Monday IN A bittersweet moment, the South African government gave the people of Cape Town’s District Six, who were evicted under apartheid, back their land at the foot of Table Mountain – but only a handful will return. The deal gives the evicted, now mostly elderly, the right to a […]

STRICT Islamic Sharia law banning consumption of alcohol, prostitution, stealing, gambling and other vices came into force on Sunday in Kano, northern Nigeria’s largest state. Kano Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso said the bill would apply only to Muslims. He appealed to state residents to abide by it, warning that those who took laws into their […]

Evaristo Cumbane, Own Correspondent | Saturday SEVEN South African pathologists have arrived in Mozambique to help investigate the death of at least 80 prisoners in the northern province of Cabo Delgado earlier this week. Mystery deepened on Friday over the deaths amid reports that they suffocated, possibly in smoke linked to traditional fighters believed to […]

ENGINEERS have successfully test-fired a new hot-water cannon designed to help a South African team climb to the top of an ice-shelf in Antarctica. The new invention is installed on the research and supply vessel SA Agulhas, which in December will take a South African National Antarctic Expedition (SANAE) team to Antarctica. The cannon is […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Vosloorus | Sunday South African soccer hung its head in shame yesterday as crowd violence forced the final of the African Women’s Championship to be abandoned. Three people were injured and were admitted to the nearby Natalspruit Hospital, in Katlehong on the East Rand. Violence erupted just after the Nigerians had scored their […]

ONE of Mozambique’s most outspoken independent journalists, Carlos Cardoso, has been assassinated in central Maputo. Cardoso, the editor of the independent daily newspaper Metical, was ambushed near his city centre office by unknown assailants just before 6pm on Wednesday. Cardoso has been very vocal in his criticism of hardline factions within both the ruling Frelimo […]

Former South African President Nelson Mandela has received the International Freedom Award from a museum at the site where US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968.

TANZANIA has become the 36th country to ban imports of meat and meat products of cloven-hoofed animals from South Africa following the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in KwaZulu-Natal. It is not known how much meat Tanzania imports from South Africa, but a supermarket owner in the Tanzanian capital, Rashid Mohamed, said South African meat […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Sunday ABOUT 2000 men marched through central Cape Town this weekend to protest the high rate of abuse of women and children in South Africa, estimated to have among the highest rates of rape in the world. Church bells pealed in support as the men marched to parliament led by […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Saturday DOCTORS said on Friday they had found an “abnormality” in the blood of 82-year-old Nelson Mandela, but that it presented no threat to his life. Mandela himself, frail, but beaming, said: “I feel good … I know that I’m not going to die tonight.” Doctors Michael Kew and Michael Plit […]

THE government of Namibia has declared a dead Rwandan refugee persona non grata (undesirable) and ordered his deportation more than a year after his burial. Wabalinda Deo Gahizi was among a group of 17 “undesirables” from neighbouring countries declared personae non gratae by Home Affairs Minister Jery Ekandjo, The Namibian newspaper reported. Gahizi won a […]

FIFTEEN people drowned when a packed minibus collided with another vehicle and plunged off a bridge into the Lagos lagoon, police and medical services said. The conductor of the bus, who was hanging on to the outside of the vehicle, swam to safety. Thousands of bright yellow minibuses ply the streets of Lagos as a […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s amnesty committee says it can find no evidence that white policemen with black-smeared faces and balaclavas took part in the massacre of 45 ANC supporters in Boipatong in 1992, according to a report in Afrikaans daily Beeld. This finding is made in the committee’s report […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Saturday DOCTORS said on Friday they had found an “abnormality” in the blood of 82-year-old Nelson Mandela, but that it presented no threat to his life. Mandela himself, frail, but beaming, said: “I feel good … I know that I’m not going to die tonight.” Doctors Michael Kew and Michael Plit […]

James Meek One hot day in September 1893, at the sound of the starting guns, the rich prairie soil of the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma was darkened by a flowing wave of humanity, horses and wagons. The United States government was giving away 33000km2 of Indian territory to any settler able to race fast enough […]

Despite businesses moving from the city centre, the outgoing city manager says Johannesburg is not a city in decline, writes Glenda Daniels He is public enemy number one to the union movement, but one of the legacies Ketso Gordhan, city manager of the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council, will leave behind is a long-awaited metropolitan policing […]

Philip French retro-thriller of the week No 2 John Singleton has done little of consequence since his impressive debut Boyz N the Hood in 1991. His reputation will not be greatly enhanced by Shaft, a much-hyped revival of the tough, libidinous private eye impersonated by Richard Roundtree in a series of blaxploitation thrillers in the […]

It takes two to tango, but for a good sporting event there usually has to be a third the referee or umpire Gavin Foster Mike Gajjar’s game is cricket, while Michael Katzenellenbogen eats, sleeps and drinks rugby. Ian Mcleod prefers the game that uses a round ball, and Darryl Ribbink is a boxing man. Despite […]

ONGERI JOHN, Dar es Salaam | Friday DROUGHT-ravaged Tanzania has introduced electricity rationing as shrinking dams begin to cutting into its hydro-electric capacity. Energy ministry permanent secretary Patrick Rutabazimbwa said major rain catchment areas had been hit by a year-long drought, drying up important feeder dams for the country’s hydro-electricity generating stations. Rutabazimbwa added that […]

Statistics show an increase in job creation over the past four years, but the real story is not so rosy Jeremy Baskin Perhaps, like me, you thought the economy was shedding jobs. Well, think again and take a close look at the figures in the table below. According to Statistics SA (in statistical release P0317) […]

The rehabilitation of state-owned sisal farms is one of the major projects of the newly established Community Public Private Partnership programme Barry Streek An ambitious and innovative programme has been launched to promote economic development in the impoverished rural areas of South Africa by linking communities with government structures, the private sector and NGOs. The […]

A group of Afrikaners has called for amendments to the Constitution to protect minority rights Howard Barrell A group of prominent Afrikaans-speaking intellectuals has called for a “new historical agreement” to protect Afrikaans and other minority languages and cultures in South Africa. It has called for urgent amendments to South Africa’s Constitution to entrench the […]

THE Lagos State government has reneged on its promise to improve power supply in the southern Nigerian metropolis due to problems it faces in implementing its accord with US energy firm ENRON. Following an agreement signed between Lagos State government and ENRON in August last year, authorities had promised to provide more than 10 million […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi Ever wondered how much your better half spends on the phone? Or why you are only told and not shown the bill at the end of each month? Easy. Try the telecommunications company’s newest innovation, Telkom online. By dialing 10210 and following a few easy instructions, you can access even your biggest foe’s […]

Andrew Muchineripi soccer The Rothmans Cup semifinals line-up this weekend has a strange look with no Kaizer Chiefs, no Sundowns and no animated Paul Dolezar screaming instructions from the sideline. Only Orlando Pirates among the big guns have reached the last four of a competition that seems to have lost a little sparkle, perhaps because […]

Peter Dickson The Eastern Cape government has nipped in the bud an audacious plan by councils in the province to give themselves multimillion-rand golden handshakes ahead of the local government elections. MEC for Local Government and Housing Gugile Nkwinti gave the mayors of East London, Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage and Despatch less than 12 hours to […]

CHARLES MANGWIRO, Maputo | Friday AN international team of doctors have begun arriving in Mozambique to investigate the mysterious death of an estimated 70 prisoners in the northern province of Cabo Delgado earlier this week. Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi told a press conference in Maputo that police reports indicated as many as 70 prisoners appeared […]

Zapiro distills the hopes and fears of the nation in his cartoons. Jane Rosenthal visited him in his studio The studio of Jonathan Shapiro, known to the nation as the cartoonist Zapiro, has the feel of a real workplace. It is dominated by an unpretentious “mid-century” architectural drawing table with pulley-operated parallel rule and custom-made […]

The founding father of African writing in English, he challenged the perspective of colonialist white writers and fell foul of successive regimes in Nigeria. Just turned 70 and living in the US, he returns to his troubled homeland in a new volume of essays. Maya Jaggi reports While Nelson Mandela was serving 27 years in […]

Piers Pigou Testimony from former Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) special operations commander Hein Grosskopf this week has raised further questions about the quality of amnesty findings by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Grosskopf’s testimony casts doubt on the decision this year by a three-member amnesty committee, chaired by Judge Andrew Wilson, that granted amnesty to […]