Staff Reporter

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Bethal | Wednesday THE mayor of one of 12 rural Mpumalanga towns teetering on the brink of bankruptcy has defied expert advice and splurged council funds on a party for 150 officials honouring controversial provincial director general Advocate Stanley Soko. Bethal mayor Mandla Khayiyane this week staged the celebration, which was closed to […]

A CAPE Town man on trial for beating a man to death with a hockey stick in a fit of “road rage” was a “volcano waiting to erupt,” a clinical psychologist told a court. Graeme Eadie, 35, has pleaded not guilty to the murder in June last year of Kevin Duncan, 55, saying he was […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Wednesday ZIMBABWEAN students studying in South Africa have turned to prostitution and begging as their scholarship money has failed to arrive from home. The Daily News said some 180 students at Fort Hare University near East London are living in near destitution because the cash-strapped Zimbabwe government is running behind on […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday SOUTH Africa gained more than R42m annually from postal trading with countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, the SA Post Office said this week. Around R30m was received from 957 000kg of letter mail dispatched to the 14 nations in the region each year, said post office […]

THE Namibian media has been asked by government to suspend reporting on violence against women and children, the Namibian Press Agency reported. Namibia’s Minister of Women Affairs and Child Welfare, Netumbo Ndaitwah, said she wanted to compare domestic violence statistics when they were published or broadcast and when they were not. She said the measure […]

AN unemployed man who allegedly burnt his grandmother to ashes after she refused to let him look for work in “evil” Johannesburg has been remanded in custody. Goodwill Nyundu, 20, of KaBokweni near White River in Mpumalanga, has refused to make a statement to police since his arrest on September 5 and has been unable […]

“IMPORTANT differences” remain as talks aimed at finalising the peace between Horn of Africa neighbours Ethiopia and Eritrea broke off last week, says an Ethiopian government official. International mediation will resume in “two to three weeks” with diplomats shuttling between Addis Ababa and Asmara, he said. A source close to the talks said the two […]

MEMBERS of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) have taken nine out of 18 seats won on Monday in the second stage of parliamentary elections, official results showed. Isolated clashes and arson attacks flared after the results were announced in some regions of the Nile Delta, where scores of people were arrested […]

PLANS for a major nationwide strike during the December holiday season by 10000 petrol attendants are going ahead after a first bid to resolve their wage dispute with employers failed, says the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa). The employers, represented by the Retail Motor Industry Organisation (RMI), say any raises depend on the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday SOUTH Africa’s controversial purchase of more than R30bn of military equipment is to come under the spotlight after a parliamentary committee found that “improper influence” was probably exerted in the government’s choice of weapons suppliers. An “independent and expert forensic investigation” is needed into claims against the purchase of […]

INTERNATIONAL human rights watchdog, Transparency International (TI), has criticised Malawi’s President Bakili Muluzi for retaining six cabinet ministers and various parliamentarians implicated in a US$2.5bn fraud scandal. The scandal saw politicians and their administrators award massive contracts to ghost companies run by relatives, secret lovers or close acquaintances. Most companies simply failed to deliver services, […]

POLICE shot at and beat civilians in Zanzibar as tensions mounted amid calls for the total cancellation of widely condemned presidential and general elections. At least one riot policeman in Zanzibar town opened fire indiscriminately at a group of about 300 protesters who had been chanting “Bye, bye CCM,” meaning the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi, […]

SUDAN has decided to end custom duties for nations in the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), state television said. President Omar al-Beshir issued a decree cancelling the tariff on the eve of his departure to a COMESA summit in Zambia. Sudan and nine other countries will sign an agreement at the summit […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday FORMER anti-apartheid cleric and now director-general in the Presidency, Reverend Frank Chikane, says he wants those responsible for him being at death’s door four times to admit it and apologise. Speaking outside the Pretoria High Court after testifying in the trial of apartheid chemical warfare expert Dr Wouter Basson, Chikane […]

THE South African government has announced its intention to sell about 30% of state owned Eskom’s 24 power stations, in a move that will cut debt and open the market to competition, the Bloomberg news service reported. Sivi Gounden, director general of the department of public enterprises, said the assets would be offered to multinational […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday US-BASED watchdog group Human Rights Watch has slammed South Africa for exporting weapons to countries where they risk fuelling conflicts. The group said in a report that half of the 10 top destinations for South African arms between 1996 and 1998 – India, Algeria, Colombia, Pakistan and Congo (Brazzaville) – […]

NATIONAL Director of Public Prosecution Bulelani Ngcuka and London’s Commissioner of Metropolitan Police John Stevens have produced a formal draft agreement on closer co-operation following last week’s four day visit by members of Scotland Yard to South Africa. They also met with the elite investigation unit, the Scorpions, and SA Police Service senior officers in […]

THE Angola Supreme Court said this week it had slapped suspended prison sentences on three journalists for defamation earlier this year. Two journalists were convicted of insulting President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, while a third was found guilty of defamation of an aide to the president, the court said. Rafael Marques, known for his human […]

A BI-NATIONAL police task team recovered almost 200 stolen South African vehicles from Mozambican motorists in the capital of Maputo last week. Interior ministry spokesman Abilio Quive said a joint team of police, customs and Attorney General officials from both countries seized 90 vehicles on Tuesday alone. “Word immediately spread about the operation and people […]

TWO Malawians were killed and three others seriously injured when a suspected anti-personnel mine exploded near the border trading town of Muloza at the weekend. Witnesses told police the men were fishing in the Muloza river near Malawi’s border with Mozambique, when one of the younger men netted a “strange metal object”. The device exploded […]

TWO civil servants in Mpumalanga have been arrested in connection with fraudulently using a government order form to order 1 000 boxes of A4 paper. The two men allegedly collected 500 of the boxes, worth over R30 000, from Corridor Stationery on October 19. But they were caught out when the company phoned to remind […]

A TOTAL of 69 new cholera cases have been reported in KwaZulu-Natal in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of reported cases to 4007 since the outbreak of the epidemic in mid-August. The death toll from disease now stands at 31. There are currently 131 tanks providing clean water to affected communities, with […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Zanzibar | Monday ELECTIONS in Tanzania have been dumped into chaos after the polling authority in the semi-autonomous island state of Zanzibar cancelled voting in 16 of the state’s 50 constituencies following a litany of irregularities. In contrast to the smoothness of proceedings on the mainland, where polls generally opened and closed according […]

SASOLBURG businessman Pieter Odendaal (44) has been declared fit to stand trial for the death of an employee who was allegedly dragged for about 6km behind a pick-up truck. Odendaal, who allegedly dragged Mosoko Rampuru (36) along a tarred road behind his bakkie, has been under psychiatric observation in Bloemfontein for 30 days. Protesters outside […]

SUSAN NJANJI, Harare | Friday ZIMBABWE President Robert Mugabe’s call for the country’s white settlers to face trial for genocide is a sign of his desperation in the face of growing tensions here, analysts said this week. Mugabe said whites who had fought against independence fighters in the war of the 1970s would be put […]

MALAWIAN President Bakili Muluzi, who along with South African leader Thabo Mbeki was appointed to mediate between Britain and Zimbabwe on the latter’s land dispute, says “some progress” has been made. A Southern African Develpment Community (SADC) summit in August asked the presidents of South Africa and Malawi to make representations to the British government […]

PAUL KIRK, Durban | Friday THREE top Durban policemen have been implicated in vehicle hijacking syndicates. This week a second stolen vehicle was recovered from the palatial home of a top Durban officer charged with investigating organised crime in less than six months. In both instances Superintendent Christie Marimuthu claimed the cars belonged to family […]

UP to 10 million Tanzanians go to the polls on Sunday in the country’s second multi-party general elections to elect a president, members of parliament and local government leaders. The United Republic of Tanzania, as the country is officially called, is a union between the semi-autonomous islands state of Zanzibar – made up of Unguja […]

PULP and paper producer Sappi has invested R58m to reduce dust and bad odours emitted from its coal-fired boiler at the Ngodwana mill near Nelspruit. Sappi said the company allocated R22m earlier this year to upgrade dust removal equipment at Ngodwana and cut dust and the rotten egg smell by 60%. Sappi allocated a further […]

THE judiciary in KwaZulu-Natal is disintegrating in the eyes of the public, High Court Judge Keith McCall has told the Judicial Services Commission in Pretoria. “The general perception is that the whole system is in tatters,” he said while being interviewed as one of three candidates for the vacant position of judge president of the […]

Some Zimbabwean whites whose farms have been earmarked for compulsory acquisition are demolishing property before their departure, a senior government official has said. “Some farmers are now vandalising property on their farms to make life difficult for whoever will be settled on these properties,” a provincial governor, David Karimanzira, told the state-run daily The Herald. […]

Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION These last two Tuesdays have seen the broadcast of the awesome BBC production of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast on M-Net. The detail, the imagination and technical tour de force of this series is hard to praise sufficiently. It was received to rapturous critical acclaim in the United Kingdom and sets its own benchmark […]