Staff Reporter

Barry Streek South Africa’s tougher new gun control regime is rapidly taking shape in Parliament in Cape Town. Prospective gun- owners will have to be older than in the past, demonstrate that they are competent to have a firearm and will hold a licence for a fixed period only, rather than for life. It seems […]

Paul Kirk Car manufacturers, environmentalists and the oil giant Sasol look set to clash over a controversial petrol additive that is dangerous, destructive and a poisonous menace to people and cars. Sasol says, however, that the manganese- based additive MMT is a safe and cheap substitute for lead in petrol. The company is preparing to […]

morality Cedric Mayson Spirit Level Being good is not just an individual matter. Morality is also a communal problem demanding a communal answer because our dos and don’ts are determined by the society we live in. Just as many South Africans still live in racial enclaves that direct their politics and behaviour, so is our […]

Merryman Kunene One of South Africa’s biggest Olympic disappointments came from the under-23 soccer team who failed to reach the quarterfinals after a couple of bad results against so-called weaker sides (Japan and Slovakia), and one glorious win over Brazil. “For me it is difficult to comment on the other sports and how the National […]

DIMENSION Data Plc is to take over US information technology group TimeBridge Technologies in a R972m cash deal in its fourth takeover in the US this year, business daily Sake-Beeld reported. The group says it will invest another R108m in TimeBridge to redeem R35m of debt and boost operating capital. Didata will pay R484.65m initially […]

POLICE have arrested a 39-year-old shopkeeper accused of setting alight four young boys, one of whom died from his injuries, after accusing them of stealing sweets. The man, who is also an advisor to the provincial education department, apparently fetched the boys from school and took them to his shop, where he locked them up […]

REUTERS, Abidjan | Thursday IVORY Coast’s military ruler, General Robert Guei, has completed a cabinet reshuffle prompted by an alleged assassination attempt, promoting loyalists and sacking those marked as opponents. Guei’s move came as his military junta agreed to study a series of proposals put forward by African leaders to resolve the country’s political crisis, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday YOU’RE not even safe from the taxman’s prying fingers in cyberspace. For the first time, tax returns will require full disclosure of sales and purchases made over the Internet. The SA Revenue Service has moved to close a loophole that may have seen billions of rands slip out of country, […]

LUNGA MASUKU AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Manzini | Thursday SWAZILANDS’S police have threatened to use force when workers embark on a crippling nationwide strike to protest against a controversial industrial relations law. The Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) called for a work stoppage on September 28 after the government failed to meet a deadline to […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT and REUTERS, Paros, Greece | Thursday AT least six South Africans are known to have survived the Greek ferry disaster near the Aegean Sea island of Paros, in which the death toll has risen to 62 as rescuers continue to pull bodies from the water. They are Charlene Cooper, Louis van Wyk, Pieter […]

PETER CUNLIFFE-JONES, Abuja | Thursday ONCE rivals, South Africa and Nigeria are now partners in economic development, with South Africans leading the new foreign investors in Nigeria’s almost untapped non-oil economy, officials say. “There is a consensus in South Africa that there is a tremendous potential in Nigeria. It is still uncharted waters, but the […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Thursday MPUMALANGA’S “obscene” R800m budget for a lavish new legislature complex – including 350 imported executive chairs at R12_ 000 each – could instead have been used to repair all flood damaged roads in the province, says Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon. Leon said it was obscene that “people living less […]

ADE OBISESAN, Lagos | Thursday NIGERIAN President Olusegun Obasanjo, who has come under fire for failing to back his anti-corruption talk with action, will this week take his first major step to repair his country’s battered reputation by inaugurating an anti-graft commission. Many Nigerians, including human rights activists and local journalists, have criticised Obasanjo for […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday CONVICTED killer Ferdi Barnard has confessed to murdering anti-apartheid lawyer David Webster outside his Johannesburg home in 1989 on orders from the shadowy Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB). Barnard told a Truth and Reconciliation Commission amnesty hearing that he conducted the assassination with the help of colleague Calla Botha on […]

FOUR southern African countries have joined forces against an international syndicate of smugglers that is costing their formal economies millions of rands every year. Customs officials from Swaziland, South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe have agreed to work together to smash the syndicate, which smuggles a range of goods for sale at deflated prices in the […]

A HOME science experiment ended tragically when a teenage girl was electrocuted by a garden fence in Northern Province. Elizabeth Zitha, 14, of Giyani, touched the fence without knowing that it was wired to a wall plug in the house. A powerful electric current threw Zitha a few metres through the air and she was […]

THE former Sierra Leone rebel leader Foday Sankoh has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, a prison official said. Sankoh, who has been in custody since May, reportedly took ill some three weeks ago and his condition has been described as “critical”. Sankoh, who is believed to be around 70 years old, launched a bush war […]

ESKOM is to become a fully fledged company in the first quarter of next year in terms of a draft Bill debated in Parliament recently. Stakeholders have long been aware that Eskom will be converted from a commission to a company, but enabling legislation has been delayed because of union opposition based on fear of […]

Own Correspondent, Johannesburg | Thursday IN a ruling which could have major repercussions on labour policies, the Constitutional Court has ordered that a man denied employment by South African Airways because he was HIV positive be offered the job as a cabin attendant with immediate effect. Judge Sandile Ngcobo, who read extracts of the judgment, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kimberley | Wednesday SPECIAL agents have smashed a massive arms smuggling ring operating at a South African National Defence Force ammunition depot at Jankempdorp in the Northern Cape, arresting seven people and seizing weapons, nearly 200kg of explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Chris Louw, deputy director of public prosecutions in the […]

A WHITE Zimbabwean farmer was injured when squatters on his farm attacked him after he refused to stop working his tobacco fields, farming officials and police said. Marshall Roper was slashed across the face in an assault which cut his cheek to the bone and sliced across his nose, said farmers in the Karoi region, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT and AFP, Pretoria | Wednesday THE Reserve Bank has described South Africa’s loss of 39 213 formal jobs in the second quarter of this year after widespread restructuring and government retrenchments as “alarming and concerning”. Statistics SA said in its Survey of Total Employment and Earnings (STEE) that at the end of June […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday VODACOM, the cellular phone network operator, is expected to retrench staff at one of its subsidiaries because of financial losses resulting from “duplication of duties,” a Johannesburg daily newspaper has reported. Business Report said that confidential company documents indicated the imminent restructuring and looming job losses had been triggered by […]

THE government may raise the legal age for gun owners from 16 to 25 in a move it hopes will ensure better control of firearms. A number of stringent new controls are to be discussed this week in the National Assembly when the new draft of the Firearms Control Bill is debated. Expected amendments include […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT and REUTERS, Johannesburg | Tuesday SOUTH Africa, the world’s biggest gold producing country for the past century, faces the prospect of losing its No 1 status by the end of the decade – and a new report suggests that only two of the country’s ageing gold mines will survive beyond 2025. The Department […]

AT least 36 people have died, and 44 are missing, after a Greek ferry with 511 people aboard ran aground and sank off the Aegean island of Paros. A port official also suffered a heart attack and died after hearing news of the sinking, the coast guard said. CNN reported that rescue teams are heading […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday VICTIMS of the March floods in Alexandra, Johannesburg have been barred from moving into temporary housing on eight hectares of land adjoining the Leeuwkop Prison after a successful court injunction by residents in the area. The Pretoria High Court blocked the flood victims from moving into the houses until an […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Wednesday A MAN found by a commission to have tried to derail internal probes into licence fraud irregularities in 1997, being unable to control his staff, attempting to cover up for their inadequacies by doing their work, and not having managerial ability has been appointed to the most powerful administrative position […]

THE Sandton woman who drugged her two sons before setting their home alight has walked free after a court found she was psychotic when the crime was committed and could not appreciate the wrongfulness of her act. Dr Manuela Costa was found “not guilty due to mental illness” after she set alight her Morningside Manor […]

AFP, New York | Wednesday THE UN refugee agency has been slated for failing to do enough for victims in refugee camps after investigations by a human rights organisation revealed rampant sexual and domestic brutality against Burundian women in camps in Tanzania. “Widespread sexual and domestic abuse have left many of these women physically battered, […]

A 20-YEAR-old man has been was arrested for murdering his mother, their gardener and the family’s poodles with a garden fork. Johannesburg police said the dogs appeared to have been killed first and left in the garden. The 60-year-old gardener was then killed in the garage, and neighbours watched helplessly as the mother was attacked […]

SA HEALTH and fitness group LeisureNet says it has signed a letter of intent to dispose of all of the assets of its offshore operations to US-based Fitness Holdings Worldwide. The announcement signals a sudden reversal of strategy for LeisureNet, which last month said it was thinking of seeking an overseas listing to help consolidate […]