Staff Reporter

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confirmed that pupils were unable to answer 66 percent of their final literature exam because the school used an outdated syllabus and prescribed incorrect setwork books. […]

THE Zambian government will need at least $534m over the next three years for its HIV/Aids intervention programme, President Frederick Chiluba said this week. Spearheading the plea for donor funds, Chiluba said Zambia was in a “desperate situation”, adding that the amount of money appeared colossal, but it reflected the complexity and magnitude of the […]

A TRICKLE of voters marked the start of Malawi’s historic local government elections on Tuesday – Malawi’s first multi-party local government polls since former Life President Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s one-party regime was ousted in the early 1990s. The apathy followed low-key election campaigning and voter education by political parties amidst widespread reports of State intimidation […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday AN internationally renowned dog training expert believes that up to 90% of South Africa’s police dogs will have to be destroyed because they are “fear biters” and “psychologically too sick” to be rehabilitated, Afrikaans daily Beeld reported. Beeld quoted Hans Schlegel, owner of the international K9 training school in Switzerland, […]

ILDA JACOBS, Washington | Wednesday AN American iced tea maker was so impressed with South Africa’s rooibos tea that he’s included it in a range of iced teas for the health conscious – and now he’s scouting for disadvantaged communities in South Africa who can provide him with the tea. Seth Goldman’s “Honest Tea” iced […]

RWANDAN authorities will launch legal proceedings to try to get more than 40 orphans adopted in Italy during the 1994 genocide returned, Foreign Minister Andre Bumaya said this week. The adoptive families, from the north of Italy, do not want to give up the 41 children, the oldest of whom is now about 10. The […]

NIGERIA has set a target of not less than $500m non-oil exports to the US to be met by the end of 2001, a top government official said this week. Nigeria has taken all necessary steps to benefit from the African Growth and Opprtunity Act (AGOA) and other preferential trade agreements, Commerce Minister Mustafa Bello […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday FORMER liberation fighter Hein Grosskopf has revealed for the first time how he planned and carried out a 1987 car bomb attack on the Witwatersrand Command army base in Johannesburg. Currently living in the United Kingdom, Grosskopf is seeking amnesty for the explosion on July 30, 1987. Twenty-six people, mostly […]

THE international human rights group Amnesty International has condemned an Egyptian court for giving prison terms to 15 Muslim Brotherhood members, saying it was a blow to freedom of expression. “Amnesty International condemns the verdict, considers the 15 men to be prisoners of conscience and calls for their immediate and unconditional release,” the London-based human […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday MORE than 1700 people who used to rent property in District Six decades ago have successfully claimed their land back, 34 years after being removed from the inner city by one of apartheid’s most hated laws, the Group Areas Act. Settlement of the tenants’ claims means that at about […]

THE Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) is set to enter the legal wrangle over the awarding of the third cellular telephone service provider, the authority said this week. The announcement followed a decision by government to provide Icasa with the funding needed to participate in the legal battle. The court proceedings were instituted by […]

JUDGE Cecil Margo, who presided over two high profile plane crash inquiries, died on Sunday at his Johannesburg home after a long illness. Margo was 85 years old. Margo headed the investigation into the plane crash in October 1986 in which Mozambican president Samora Machel was killed. He also headed the inquiry into the South […]

A BAND of six gunmen sowed terror for half an hour in the Egyptian town of Al-Maragha in raids on two banks that led to the death of 12 people, including three policemen. Another 12 people were injured during the shooting spree, which broke out in the town’s market, where the two banks are located. […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kakamas | Tuesday THE survivor of a racial attack in the Northern Cape town of Kakamas has told how two white residents shouted racial abuse and swigged brandy and beer while they chained two coloured men to a tree and beat one of them to death, The Star newspaper reported. Farm worker Dawid […]

SUDANESE government bombs killed 18 civilians in southern Sudan on Monday, according to joint charges by rebels, aid workers and a visiting senior US official. Susan Rice, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, lambasted the Khartoum regime after a two day “humanitarian assessment” visit to the south. Echoing a statement released by rebel […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday SOUTH African police announced the arrest on Monday of the owner and the manager of a factory in which 11 workers burnt to death three days ago after being locked in. The workers were killed late Friday when a fire raged through the ESS Chemicals factory near Johannesburg. A senior […]

BRIAN LIGOMEKA, Blantyre | Tuesday ALMOST six percent of Malawi’s population, or 600000 people, are beggars and rely on handouts to survive, a report claimed this week. Malawi’s Council for the Handicap (MACOHA) said in a statement the beggars were largely handicapped or homeless villagers who had been forced into the country’s cities and towns […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday WITNESSES are too afraid to testify against members of South Africa’s Muslim vigilante group Pagad who were arrested for the 1996 murder of a Cape Town gang boss, a court heard this week. This meant that media footage of the gruesome murder of gangster Rashaad Staggie has become essential […]

SALDANHA Steel, the 50-50 joint venture between Iscor and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), was likely to cost the partners more than R1bn each this financial year, the IDC warned last week. In its latest annual report, the IDC said Saldanha would lose R737m next year, 22% less than this year’s R945m loss, Business Report […]

THE current moratorium on the release of crime statistics will be lifted sooner rather than later, says National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi. He said police management would receive a progress report from a task team overhauling the way in which the figures have previously been compiled. Safety and Security Minister Steve Tshwete approved the moratorium […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Lagos | Monday NIGERIA’S top lawmakers take home pay and allowances worth more than $9 000 a month, most of which they have awarded themselves, in a country where most people earn less than a dollar a day. Members of the 109-seat Senate, or upper house, and the 360-seat House of Representatives, or […]

SOUTH African Internet recruitment portal CareerJunction’s traffic volumes have soared by more than 100% in the past three months on the back of an aggressive online strategy sparked by new partner Johnnic e-Ventures. The effect of the Johnnic e-Ventures deal – which saw JeV buy 51% of CareerJunction in June – has been dramatic.

SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki has held private talks with Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on the problems Mugabe faces at home and on the Democratic Republic of Congo, aides said. Their 45-minute talks took place at Johannesburg International Airport, where Mugabe stopped off en route to an economic conference of developing countries in Malaysia. – […]

PHILLIP NKOSI, Piet Retief | Monday HIGH-flying Piet Retief mayor Andries Gamede, who is facing an investigation into false expense claims – and a R500000 lawsuit for unfair dismissal – is throwing a bumper year-end party for local councillors with about R70000 of unbudgeted taxpayers’ money. Gospel singer Rebecca Malope has been offered R27900 to […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Monday THE eight former Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) operatives who attempted to kill Transport Minister Dullah Omar, his wife Farida and journalist Gavin Evans should be denied amnesty because they gave only “glimpses of the truth”, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has heard. Ferdi Barnard, Carl “Calla” Botha, Joe Verster, […]

FREE State Premier Winkie Direko has expressed shock at the arrest of the speaker of the province’s legislature on murder charges, SABC radio news reported on Sunday. Joe Mafereka was arrested on Saturday at Johannesburg International Airport by members of the Special Investigation Unit on murder charges related to taxi violence in 1989. Before joining […]

POLICE in Florida, west of Johannesburg, were searching on Monday for a 62-year-old man who allegedly sexually abused three of his five children over the course of 20 years. The man apparently fled a flat he had shared with two daughters after his elder daughter laid charges of sexual assault and incest against him. The […]

A 13-year-old girl has gone to police in northeastern Ethiopia with a case against her family and prospective husband to avoid a forced marriage, Ethiopia’s news agency ENA reported. Sarah Mohamed, who lives in the Dessie district of the ethnic Amhara Wollo region, lodged a complaint with police, saying she had repeatedly told her family […]

HUGH NEVILL, Johannesburg | Monday SOUTH Africa’s top government labour official has ordered a clampdown on dangerous working conditions following the fiery deaths of 11 night-shift workers locked into in a Johannesburg chemicals factory. “Employers who do not adhere to occupational health safety regulations should expect a zero tolerance approach from the department, which will […]

A FIVE-year-old East London boy died and his 40-year-old mother was critically ill after they apparently ate a poisonous plant with their lunch on Saturday, Eastern Cape police said on Sunday. Inspector John Fobian, of the police’s disaster management team, said Riando Mashabalala, 5, and his mother Yoliswa from Needs Camp had picked what they […]

NORTHERN Cape police have identified the man who died after he was chained to a tree by his neck on a farm in the Kakamas area in the Northern Cape as 38-year-old Adam Smit. Police found Smit’s body on the farm Soetap along with his friend Dawid Klaaste, who survived the ordeal. Two farmworkers – […]

BOUBKER BELKADI, Algiers | Monday A DELEGATION from Amnesty International has left strife-torn Algeria disappointed at being unable to meet government officials and army officers over rights abuses, a spokesman said. Roger Clark, a Canadian leading the delegation from the human rights organisation, said the group regretted that it could not realise the goals it […]