Staff Reporter

BENIN has sought Nigeria’s support in its bid to host the headquarters of a proposed west African gas pipeline project. Four west African countries – Benin, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo – are participating in the project being implemented by west African regional grouping ECOWAS. – AFP

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 […]

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 […]

Charl Pretorius horse racing More than R20-million is expected to be paid out in winning bets at Turffontein on Saturday on what is being touted as “an afternoon in a million”. The occasion is the running of Africa’s richest horse race, the R2-million Summer Handicap, and a record crowd is expected at the Johannesburg track. […]

Cedric Mayson spirit level Faith comes in two versions. There is faith as a focus and faith as a force, faith that imparts knowledge and faith that imparts experience, faith that informs your thinking and faith that kicks you in the bum. Neither of them is limited to religion. Faith as a focus deals with […]

If you were in flood-ravaged KwaZulu-Natal or Mozambique this week, you would have seen the effects of global warning first hand. Sea-level rise and more frequent extreme weather are no longer theory but reality. Most climate scientists now agree that human activity is the main cause of global warming. Millions of people across the world […]

Jaspreet Kindra ‘Use condoms and do not sleep with just anyone!” President Thabo Mbeki is warning the amaQadi community of the dangers of HIV/Aids. The significance of this piece of advice from a man who has been questioning the link between HIV and Aids for about a year eludes the nodding rural community gathered in […]

Last weekend’s match against the Kiwis will be remembered for Allan Donald’s 300th Test wicket and Makhaya Ntini’s coming of age Peter Robinson On the day that The Star in Johannesburg chose to devote much of its front page to the changing hairstyles of Bobby Skinstad, the world’s best non-playing loose forward, Makhaya Ntini actually […]

Tim Radford Life is what you make of it. Right now, what you make of it is money. You can isolate a length of DNA, describe it, make something inventive, propose a use, pay some money and claim it as yours at a patent office. Congratulations. You have joined the 21st-century gold rush. You have […]

Ebrahim Harvey Left Field The recent commemoration of the death of Steve Biko, founding father of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), put the spotlight on the movement and came at a time when, represented by the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) and the Socialist Party of Azania (Sopa), it is faced with very difficult times. Both […]

Paul Kirk An ingenious scheme to make millions out of Road Accident Fund claims has backfired after a smooth-talking lawyer skipped the country with stolen funds in excess of R34-million. Before leaving South Africa last month Ian Stokes disposed of his expensive assets for a fraction of their value, selling his penthouse to Springbok rugby […]

Zenzile Khoisan New evidence has emerged of how the national head of violent crimes, Commissioner Leonard Knipe, used his senior position in the police to intimidate witnesses and threatened to topple the African National Congress government. According to tape recordings in the possession of the Mail & Guardian, Knipe threatened to “bring down” the ANC […]

Guy Clapperton A photographer who takes a picture retains the copyright unless it is signed over to someone else. But if the picture is held electronically, international copyright law becomes null and void. Sounds ludicrous? Not according to Sygma, the French picture library that was recently acquired by Bill Gates’s picture giant, Corbis. The company […]

Andrew Worsdale Sithengi, the fifth Southern African Film and Television Market, was held at the Spier Wine Estate near Stellenbosch, 45 minutes from Cape Town, from November 13 to 16. Although the organisers boasted an increase in attendance with 1?420 delegates, in comparison to previous years, the atmosphere felt less charged and more cautious. Added […]

Tangeni Amupadhi The last hunter-gatherer Bushman/San community in Namibia is facing total extinction after authorities announced plans to build a refugee camp in the eastern part of the country. Environmentalists and senior !Kung leaders, including politicians and traditional chiefs, have expressed concern that an area that can barely sustain 6?000 San people is now expected […]

Thuli Nhlapo The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) in Mpumalanga has deposited tens of thousands of rands in tribal authority bank accounts as part of a scheme to get tribal leaders to help reach voters. The IEC in Mpumalanga confirmed this week that it had given seven traditional leaders R10 000 each for hosting “imbizos” at […]

EMSIE FERREIRA, Johannesburg | Thursday CHILD sex trafficking – with children as young as four – is on the rise in South Africa, driven by deepening poverty that sometimes sees a family force a child into prostitution as its only source of income, says a report released this week. The report says there are an […]

FLIES and black cockroaches, possibly attracted by corpses of victims of Angola’s civil war, are invading the central Angolan town of Cuito, state-run radio reported. Health authorities fear residents who have survived the warfare could suffer new problems caused by the insects, the report said. A group of experts has launched a study into the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Thursday THE Denel group this week an agreement in Kuala Lumpur with the government of Malaysia for the supply of artillery systems to the Malaysian armed forces. The contract, valued at $50m, provides for delivery of 22 units of the South African-developed 155mm 45-calibre G5 Mark 3 towed artillery system, along […]

RESEARCHERS say they have discovered traces of cocaine in 4000-year-old Egyptian mummies, which they call evidence of contact with American cultures centuries before Christopher Columbus. The decade-long study languished “under pressure from people with obscure interests who don’t accept changes in the interpretation of history,” researcher Svetlana Balabanova said from Frankfurt, Germany. Cocaine is synthesized […]

THREE men cut off an aspirant sangoma’s testicle and left him lying in agony in the veld for three nights. Chuchi Ronald Maluleke, 32, was undergoing training as a sangoma in the Northern Province when he was attacked when he went to relieve himself on Friday night. Two held him down while the third cut […]

AT least 95 people have died of yellow fever in an epidemic that broke out in central Guinea last month. The epidemic is centred in Mamou, 280km east of the capital Conakry, and has spread to Labe and Koubia in the same region, the relief agency Hopital Sans Frontiere (Hospital Without a Border) said. Yellow […]

FIFTY people have been killed and several injured in a clash in central Chad over a land dispute, sources in the Chadian capital N’Djamena said. The clash occurred this week between two ethnic groups in Djedda, some 350km northeast of the capital in Batha Province. A source close to the interior ministry said the dispute […]

FINAL year pupils at a leading Swaziland school failed their English literature exams this week because teachers taught them the wrong syllabus. Siphocosini High School in the capital Mbabane confirmed that pupils were unable to answer 66 percent of their final literature exam because the school used an outdated syllabus and prescribed incorrect setwork books. […]

KENYA has banned trawler fishing in its Indian Ocean waters, after brawls between foreign and local fishermen and amid concern for the environment and breeding grounds, officials said. Trawling within five nautical miles on the Kenyan north coast has led to deaths of hundreds of turtles, marine biologists said. The three-month ban was implemented by […]

SWAZILAND’S feared Makhundu 60-day detention-without-trial law is illegal and cannot be used to arrest political dissidents as threatened, the kingdom’s Attorney General Phesheya Dlamini said this week. The law was repealed by King Mswati III in September 1993 and would first have to be officially reinstated and gazetted before it could be used again. Swaziland […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Thursday A FORMER Military Intelligence agent has revealed a bizarre scheme to kill an ANC spy with mamba poison to cover up the SA Defence Force’s role in the execution of five Mozambican resistance fighters. Testifying in the trial of apartheid chemical warfare expert Wouter Basson, former MI commander Cornelius Johannes […]

BRENDAN BOYLE, Pretoria | Thursday MIXED reactions have greeted a decision by a Pretoria court to grant bail to the six white police officers alleged to have set dogs on illegal job-seekers. While demonstrators outside the court shouted “one settler, one bullet” and demanded the six be jailed, the accused’s delighted families said they would […]