Staff Reporter

MUNGO SOGGOT, DAVID LE PAGE and EVIDENCE WA KA NGOBENI | Friday THE Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, is probing a R1,5bn secret deal at the state oil company which has effectively privatised the state’s oil trading operations without the knowledge of the government. The agreement strips the country of its strategic […]

A bunch of new-wave ballerinas have borrowed what they can from cabaret and high fashion to update a classic Andrew Gilder The Fantastic Flying Fish Dance Company is no stranger to controversy. Its policy of following an “in-your-face” approach to choreography and production has garnered criticism from colleagues, public and press alike – most commonly […]

TANZANIA’S ruling party is heading for an expected landslide victory in the country’s second multiparty elections after winning all but four of the National Assembly seats. Electoral officials said Chama Cha Mapinduzi had won 64 of the 68 seats where votes have been counted in the 231-seat National Assembly. The Civic United Front – the […]

Irwin Manoim The Cogwheel Brain: Charles Babbage and the quest to build the first computer by Doron Swade (Little, Brown) Had Charles Babbage been a little more even-tempered, a little less inclined to turn friends into life-long enemies, perhaps your great-grandmother would have grown up playing computer games. Babbage invented a chess-playing computer more than […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday THE South African Council of Churches is to address racism among its 26 member churches, focusing on “exorcising white attitudes”, gender issues and poverty alleviation. The declaration was contained in a plan of action released at a media conference following a three-day SACC conference in Kempton Park. The plan of […]

Valentine Cascarino Parallel lines never meet in science, but musically they’ve met in South Africa in the form of Kampi Moto and George Phiri. The two have recently combined their talents to produce a superb album, both acoustic and harmonious. If you ask Congolese youth who their favourite musician is, they’ll definitely say Papa Wemba. […]

AFP and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Friday POLICE on Friday morning found and deactivated a bomb placed outside a pub in a suburb of Cape Town. The device was discovered shortly before 7:00 am and the police had information indicating that is was due to detonate around midday when people would be lunching at […]

As relatively new foreign market investors, South Africans need to be aware of the many pitfalls involved Neil Thomas It usually starts with an unsolicited phone call. The voice on the other end sounds very professional and knowledgeable about investments. They represent a company that sounds reputable, a name like Bradshaw Global Investments or Mendes […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday THE ruling African National Congress has launched a bitter attack on the press for reporting that President Thabo Mbeki’s late spokesman had died of Aids, with ANC Youth League president Malusi Gigaba telling the media “you must at least mimic humans.” At a memorial service in Johannesburg for Parks Mankahlana, […]

Merle Colborne places Across from the London Tailor Shop in Durban’s Madressa Arcade, the walls of the Colonial Hairdressing Salon are press-stuck with images of Hindu gods and a barber-shy Sai Baba. An abundantly-bearded client in a Muslim khurta has arranged himself in the veteran red leather, hand-carved oak chair with its weighty brass fittings, […]

THE African National Congress (ANC) this week accused authorities in neighbouring Swaziland of “gross violations of human rights” following unrest in the tiny kingdom. The party bemoaned the “land evictions, detentions, torture, harassment and the brutality of the Swazi police in response to peaceful demonstrations,” in a motion to the National Assembly. During two weeks […]

HOBBS GAMA, Blantyre | Thursday MALAWI President Bakili Muluzi unexpectedly fired his entire 33 member cabinet on Thursday morning amidst growing corruption and financial mismanagement charges. President Muluzi’s office announced on State radio that all executive government matters would be handled directly by the presidency until a new cabinet is appointed. Office of the President […]

MALAWI’S telecommunications parastatal, Malawi Telecommunications Limited (MTL), this week launched an ambitious five-year strategic plan to triple the number of fixed-line telephones in the country in an apparent attempt to beat off competition from mobile and cellular telephone networks. MTL chief executive Emmanuel Mahuka said that the plan would include upgrading the country’s existing 45 […]

GOLD fever is set to grip South Africa’s most famous historical mining town next week when thousands of gold panners gather in Pilgrim’s Rest to battle it out at the annual National Gold Panning Championships. Mpumalanga Tourism Authority (MTA) spokesman Norman Madzhiga said the annual championships on November 11 had attracted 120 ‘professional’ entries, with […]

FORMER Swazi Prime Minister Prince Mbilini Dlamini, who was demoted after a spate of anti-government demonstrations in the mid-nineties, has bounced back into politics as an adviser to King Mswati III. Dlamini was appointed Prime Minister in 1993, and his tenure was marked by political unrest as pro-democracy activists staged demonstrations to push for political […]

PHILLIP NKOSI and JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Thursday THE much-delayed disciplinary hearing into Mpumalanga’s suspended parks board chief, Alan Gray, wrapped up testimony this week after four days of legal argument. Gray, who was suspended on 20 internal misconduct and alleged fraud charges in September 1998, will however only learn his fate on November 23 […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Thursday TWO foreign ombudsmen attending a conference in Durban have been robbed at knifepoint by gangs of brazen teenage muggers in two separate incidents – with one being bitten by his young assailants when he resisted. Belgian ombudsman Herman Wuyts said he had a tetanus injection after being bitten by one […]

A BRITISH private firm, Crown Agents, caught a customs officer red-handed as he was taking a a bribe in what it called “the most flagrant act of corruption” since it took over the management of the Mozambican customs service about three years ago. The company said revenue collection had improved since Crown Agents started cracking […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Johannesburg | Thursday AN international conference of indigenous communities from five African countries has condemned alleged human rights abuses against the Kalahari Desert San people by the Botswana government. Describing the San as Africa’s oldest inhabitants, the conference accused the Botswana government and its wildlife authorities of an alarming pattern of forced removals […]

ILDA JACOBS, Washington DC | Thursday AMERICANS are discovering one of South Africa’s best-kept secrets: dunking rusks in their morning coffee. Until recently freshly baked rusks could not be bought for love or money anywhere in the United States. But Kalahari Limited, a South African-owned company in Atlanta, has changed that. The dried biscuit invented […]

EBOLA fever has claimed five more lives in the north Ugandan district of Gulu in the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 80, the government said. Twelve more patients were also admitted to the two hospitals in and around Gulu town, bringing the total number of those affected by the disease to […]

SWAZI groups meeting in Johannesburg have called for an international campaign to isolate the tiny mountain kingdom to avoid civil war. “We continue to have an undemocratic, despotic, totalitarian monarchy in Swaziland,” said Bongani Masuku, secretary general of the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN), an umbrella organisation working for democracy. The campaign comes after two weeks […]

THE case of six Mpumalanga men accused of hanging a suspected witch from a graveyard tree has been set for trial after being postponed eight times over the past year. The men allegedly hanged Simon “Killer” Magagula, 30, on December 26 last year after accusing him of bewitching roosters that pecked people and killed them. […]

A SECOND decomposing body has been found in bushes where a man was caught cooking a human liver and thumb over a fire near Hazyview in Mpumalanga. A team of 40 people and police sniffer dogs found the body in a donga, 30m from where the first body was found in a shallow grave near […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, East London | Thursday EASTERN Cape premier Makhenkesi Stofile has vetoed a disciplinary committee’s axing of the province’s agriculture and land affairs department head, instead appointing him to run the transport department. Zola Gebeda was suspended in March and was subsequently found guilty by a disciplinary committee on 16 counts relating to administrative […]

NIGERIA plans to spend 50bn naira (around $42m) next year to boost its epileptic power supply system, Power and Steel Minister Olusegun Agagu has said. The money will be used to improve generating, transmission and distribution capacity of the inefficient state-run electricity company NEPA, the minister said this week. He said 30 billion naira was […]

ZIMBABWE has raised fuel prices by up to 14.6%, the fifth hike this year, citing increased procurement costs and the devaluation of the local dollar. In a statement, state oil procurer National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM) said the retail price of unleaded petrol had gone up to Z$46.77 per litre from Z$40.80 while diesel […]

THE trial of three Pep Stores employees accused of painting a 14-year-old girl white after accusing her of shoplifting, has been postponed to allow the accused to get legal representation. Thelma Strydom, Julia Munyai and Albert Mbezi were released on a warning and have not been asked to plead on charges of assault, theft and […]

TWO men have been arrested in connection with the murder of Mpumalanga’s Lowveld Assistant Commissioner of police, Mandla Mahlangu. The men, aged 31 and 32, were arrested in Orange Farm and Alexandria in Johannesburg after Northern Province murder and robbery unit detectives received a tip-off. One of the men was arrested in a bank, while […]

TWO mentally retarded men were arrested in the Northern Province this week after police caught one of them cooking a human liver and thumb over a campfire. The body of a 56-year-old man reported missing 11 days previously was found in a shallow grave about 20 metres from the scene. Police said that while searching […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Wednesday A FORMER security policeman has told the Wouter Basson trial in the Pretoria High Court how he was informed in 1989 of a plan to poison the clothes of SA Council of Churches stalwart Rev Frank Chikane, and had helped to pick the lock of Chikane’s suitcase. Bomb disposal expert […]

LEGISLATORS in Nigeria’s lower house of parliament exchanged blows this week over charges that President Olusegun Obasanjo had tried to bribe some of them to support a probe into corruption charges against their leadership. The house adopted the motion to investigate the bribery allegation against Obasanjo, his deputy and others, but rejected a second motion […]