Staff Reporter

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 […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, AFP and AP, Johannesburg | Wednesday SECURITY guards at the Johannesburg offices of mining giant Anglo American sprayed about 150 demonstrators with pepper spray as they arrived to protest IMF and World Bank policies. Their protest came as several hundred like-minded demonstrators clashed violently with police in Prague as the two financial institutions […]

A 67-year-old Dundee farmer has been found guilty of hiring a professional assassin to murder a State witness scheduled to testify against his son. Cooks Henning showed little emotion when Dundee Magistrate Barney Visagie found him guilty of conspiracy to murder. Magistrate Visagie said the evidence confirmed that Henning hired Sasolburg hitman Gerard Opperman to […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Wednesday CONTROVERSIAL South African arms manufacturer Denel, which has undergone a major transformation in recent years, has “turned the corner” and expects to start realising profits next year, says acting chief executive Flip Botha. Releasing Denel’s results, Botha said the company’s gross revenue increased by 20% in the past financial year, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Tuesday HEALTH workers are fighting two separate outbreaks of cholera in northern Kwazulu Natal, which have killed two people and seen more than 1 000 contract the disease. An outbreak of the disease was reported in the rural Empangeni area in the northern part of the province in late August and […]

CAPE Town’s Cape Grace Hotel has been rated the finest hotel in the world at the Conde Nast Traveller’s 2000 Readers’ Choice Awards. Cape Grace won the award with a score of 95, the highest achieved in any category this year and the highest rating ever accomplished in the 13-year history of the poll of […]

AFP, Luanda | Tuesday ANGOLA’S government is cracking down on domestic diamond traders, giving small-scale miners 60 days to register their informal businesses and start paying taxes, say government officials. Authorities want to eliminate the parallel market in diamonds, which provide a major source of government funding. The latest push is part of a broader […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT AND REUTERS, Algiers | Monday A VISIT to Algeria by South African President Thabo Mbeki and a high-powered delegation – including seven ministers and 30 chief executives of large South African companies – is paying rich dividends with the signing of an economic cooperation agreement to boost investment and trade exchanges between the […]

THE United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a warning about home HIV test kits being dumped in developing countries. Dr Steven Toovey from the British Airways Travel Clinic warned that none of the kits, some of which are being sold in South Africa, have been found to be reliable enough to be allowed […]

A UGANDAN member of parliament has been arrested on charges of raping a 25-year-old woman in his Kampala home. Callistus Adome Lokwii, 36, the MP for Jie county in northeastern Uganda, was arrested after he was accused of raping the woman, whom he had apparently offered a lift in his car the previous evening. A […]

ORGANISATION of African Unity (OAU) leaders have proposed the creation of a “transitional council” for Ivory Coast, including representatives of the ruling junta and the main political parties, to prepare for upcoming elections. Seven African heads of state have held meetings with Ivorian military leader General Robert Guei and leaders of the four main political […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pietermaritzburg | Tuesday FARMERS in the KwaZulu Natal Midlands face financial ruin if government officials go ahead with a plan to slaughter all livestock in a bid to contain an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease which threatens to devastate the South African agricultural industry. The prospect of a pre-emptive slaughtering campaign – and resulting […]

A TEAM of US officials and private advisers has arrived in Abuja to start work on reform of the Nigerian military, the government announced. The assistance is part of a larger, $20m package agreed by Washington earlier this year aimed at boosting civilian control over the military and improving peacekeeping capacity in the country. The […]

PHILLIP NKOSI, Nelspruit | Tuesday SOUTH Africa’s largest and most controversial vigilante group, Mapogo-A-Mathamaga, has been fired from guarding Mpumalanga’s glitzy R600-million legislature complex near Nelspruit. Safety and security MEC Steve Mabona intervened after media reports that the vigilantes had been appointed to guard the complex because conventional security services and police were unable to […]

ELLIS MNYANDU AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday GOVERNMENT is unlikely to overhaul its business blueprint in spite of threats by South Africa’s giant labour union federation Cosatu to strike to force changes to the country’s key policies, say analysts. Cosatu and the SA Communist Party had grumbled this week at Cosatu’s annual congress that […]

AFP AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Baghdad | Monday IRAQI President Saddam Hussein has taken delivery of a copy of the Koran he ordered written in his own blood to thank God for escaping unscathed from his long political career. The special edition of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, took three years to finish and was […]

RESCUE workers are continuing to work around the clock in a bid to free two miners who have been trapped underground since Friday following a rockfall at the Kloof Gold mine outside Carltonville on the West Rand. A mine official said proto teams had not managed to make contact with the men and that the […]

SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki has joined leaders from ten other nations in the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), in the Togo capital, Lome to discuss the growing political tension in the Ivory Coast. Trouble in Ivory Coast began when its ruler, General Robert Guei, decided to run for office, after telling the nation in […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT AND AFP, Cape Town | Saturday A SOUTH African court has for the first time awarded a person symbolic compensation for the distress suffered after being forced from their home by the former apartheid regime. The Land Claims Court this week ordered that 75-year-old Ronald Hermanus, a coloured man, be paid R6 000 […]

ROSE-MARIE BRUBALLA AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday SOUTH AFRICA’S elite Scorpions crime-fighting unit has joined the hunt for a ship that may have brought a potentially disastrous livestock disease into the country, a government official said. The move comes as government officials fight to contain the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that could cost South […]

GRAVE robbers have dug up the bones of a former deputy minister of the apartheid regime to create a powerful “cure” for Aids, the Sunday Times newspaper reported. “All that is left of Hannes Rall, a deputy minister of transport in the apartheid government, are a few bones in a plastic bag at a police […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maputo | Monday NEARLY 100_ 000 Mozambican families in areas affected by the devastating floods earlier this year will get a new lease of life when the country’s agricultural authorities start handing out seed kits for the coming planting season. Already dozens of trucks loaded with seeds imported from neighbouring South Africa and […]

A COUPLE have been publicly flogged in Nigeria’s northwestern Zamfara state for failing to prove their allegations that the Islamic head of the village had sex with their daughter, a court official said. Haruna Dutsi and his wife, Aishat, were given 80 strokes of the cane each in a public spectacle in the village of […]

BLOODY attacks attributed to armed Islamic militants in Algeria multiplied last week, with local media reporting nearly 40 killings, as fears of a resurgence in violence haunted the country. Most of the attacks took place in the Mitidja region, the fertile agricultural plain near the capital and former stronghold of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Sunday IN the latest twist to a confusing series of claims and counter-claims between Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and police over a hand grenade attack on the party’s headquarters, a Harare policeman has appeared in court for his alleged involvement in the bombing. Lazarus Nkomo, who is said […]

ANC Women’s League president Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has denied newspaper reports claiming that a Chinese beer company is to sponsor her birthday party to the tune of R350_ 000 in a so-called “cash-for-contacts” deal. The Sunday Times said the “cash-for-contacts” deal by Tsingtao Beer was put together by a promotions company owned by Madikizela-Mandela’s daughter, Zinzi […]

AFP, Harare | Friday FOUR white farmers have been arrested on charges of “inciting violence” for allegedly convincing their black labourers to evict squatters from several farms south of Harare, the government daily reported. “The police will not tolerate any unlawful actions or disruptions of public order, such as new farm occupations,” The Herald quoted […]

AN Egyptian worker stabbed his employer to death, then ate his flesh and drank his blood in an old Cairo mosque after he was fired from his job renovating the holy site, police said. The 28-year-old worker was enraged at his 56-year-old employer for firing him after only a day’s work at Al-Kordi mosque and […]

FIRE has forced the plane of Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema to make an emergency landing at Niamey airport before being engulfed in flames, aviation authorities here said. Eyadema was not onboard, nor was any other Togolese dignitary. Ten people, including eight crew, were onboard, and two people were slightly injured in the incident. The aircraft […]

A SWISS judge investigating the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars to Switzerland by the regime of the late Sani Abacha has questioned his son, Mohammed Abacha. Judge George Zecchin arrived in Nigeria and met Abacha after he was flown to Abuja from Lagos where he is currently detained on unrelated murder charges. A […]