Staff Reporter

KHANYISILE MAEPA, Mbabane | Monday THE shift by SABC television from analogue to digital broadcasting has left thousands of Swazis cut off from their favorite channels – and reinforced calls for media diversity in the tiny kingdom. The South African broadcaster switched off its SABC 3 analogue service on September 11, and will cut off […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Monday DEFENCE Minister Mosiuoa Lekota and defence force chief General Siphiwe Nyanda have confirmed that the government is considering reintroducing some form of conscription. Speaking at a briefing for media and diplomats at Parliament, they said current members of the South African National Defence Force were not “getting any younger”, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday AS South Africa’s roads continue to crumble, the National Roads Agency is to investigate the building of 18 new toll routes which could see up to 3500km of roads fall under private management in the next five years. According to a report in the Business Day newspaper, the road network […]

WORK has started on a $10m project to clear earth blocking the flow of the River Nile, using machinery supplied by the Egyptian government. Workers started removing the mass of earth blocking the middle of the river’s main stream, said an Egyptian irrigation mission official. The Nile is the main source of water for agriculture […]

THE release of some 18 000 prisoners from South Africa’s overcrowded jails has run into fresh criticism after weekend reports that one man accused of car theft pointed a pistol at a woman’s head and stole her car less than 24 hours after being released. The release last week, mostly of suspects awaiting trial who […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kampala | Monday A SPECIAL committee appointed to investigate the farms crisis in Mpumalanga has painted a picture of dirt-poor farm workers being beaten up by vigilantes, while farmers live in fear and carry guns on their hips. In its report to the provincial legislature, committee chair Victor Windvoel said farm workers were […]

THE new prime minister of Mauritius, Anerood Jugnauth, and the 23 members of his government have been sworn into office in the presence of President Cassam Uteem. At the head of an alliance with Paul Berenger’s Mauritian Militant Movement, Jugnauth’s Militant Socialist Movement won a sweeping victory in a general election last week, obtaining 54 […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, New York | Monday SOUTH African gold producer Anglogold is to boycott this week’s Bank of England gold auction, which it says is likely to receive an “unenthusiastic” response from the marketplace. Echoing the sentiment of many other gold market industry players, AngloGold marketing executive director Kelvin Williams described the auction format as […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pietermaritzburg | Monday GOVERNMENT is racing to quell fears over the potential economic implications for South Africa of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease on a pig farm in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands, but warns that the country could face disaster if the disease is not contained. Strict emergency measures have been put in place […]

THE trial of six Bulgarians, who face the death penalty if found guilty of deliberately infecting nearly 400 Libyan children with AIDS, has been postponed again – the fifth postponement since it opened in February. The six Bulgarians, five nurses and a doctor, as well as a Palestinian doctor, stand accused of “triggering an AIDS […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday WORKERS at the Anglo American Platinum Corporation (Amplats), the world’s largest producer of the precious metal, are set to strike from this evening after failed wage negotiations. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is to advise employees at the company to strike if their demands for a 10% wage increase […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT and AFP, Cairo | Monday AFRICAN nations need to push for closer trade links if they want to call the shots at World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations, an international trade official said ahead of a meeting of African trade ministers. Chungu Mwila, an official with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, […]

THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission has granted amnesty to a commander of the Azanian Peoples Liberation Army (Apla), Phila Dolo, for planning the killing of the Eikenhof Three in March 1993. Dolo applied for amnesty for his role in the killings of Zandra Mitchley, Shaun Mitchley, Claire Silberbauer and attempted murder of Norman Mitchley and […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Sunday A PRETORIA teenager has been arrested after confessing to killing her father and his lover by pouring petrol on them and setting them alight as they lay asleep. The teenager was taken into custody after the lover, Neeltjie Reese (39), gave a priest vital information about the attack as she […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kampala | Sunday DELEGATES at a controversial Aids conference in Uganda have called for the suspension of HIV testing and an immediate halt to the provision of anti-retroviral drugs to HIV positive pregnant and breast feeding women. The conference, held earlier this month at Uganda’s Roman Catholic Nkozi Martyrs University, near the capital […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT and AFP, Sydney | Sunday SOUTH Africa has produced a major upset, shocking Brazil 3-1, to draw level on points with the South Americans in Group D of the Olympic men’s football tournament. Substitute Siyabonga Nomvethe, who missed a string of chances in last Thursday’s defeat at the hands of Japan, rose to […]

AFP, Gusau, Nigeria | Saturday THE governor of a Nigerian state where strict Islamic law against prostitution and other vices has been introduced has distributed more than $400000 to prostitutes to discourage them from soliciting. Northwestern Sokoto state governor Attahiru Bafarawa said the amount, distributed to more than 100 beneficiaries, was part of efforts to […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Saturday ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe’s government has announced that it is to grab another 57 white-owned farms, including large chunks of two of Anglo American’s most intensive sugar and citrus estates – ignoring assurances that it will seize only properties that are under-utilised and which are part of multiple holdings. Notices […]

SOUTH Africa’s Deputy President Jacob Zuma is to hold a second day of talks with members of a main Hutu rebel group in Burundi to discuss ending the seven-year armed conflict. Zuma met a delegation from the National Liberation Forces (FNL) in Pretoria to discuss a ceasefire agreement. A source close to the negotiations said […]

A SOLDIER, airman and two policemen appeared in the Hoedspruit Periodical Court in Northern Province in connection with keeping a teenager as a sex slave for six months. Corporal Benzion Polonksky (27) of the Hoedspruit army base, Corporal Carl Joubert (26) of Hoedspruit air base and Constables Cornelius Lourens (25) and Nicholas Wolmarans (26) of […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Saturday SOUTH Africa’s agricultural trade faces an “immediate and devastating” embargo from foreign markets after the first outbreak of foot and mouth disease outside the Kruger National Park since 1956 was reported on a pig farm near Pietermaritzburg. The Camperdown farm where the outbreak was reported and surrounding farms have been […]

MPUMULANGA farm workers and labour tenants will march to Premier Ndaweni Mahlangu’s office to demand tenure security and protection from commandos and private security companies. March co-ordinator, Mbuyiselo Kona, said farm dwellers lived in constant fear of gross human rights violations which were supported by security forces and the criminal justice system. “The people need […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT and AFP, Johannesburg | Friday PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki has appointed Development Bank of Southern Africa chair Wiseman Nkuhlu as his special economic adviser. Nkuhlu said he would focus on the alleviation of poverty and unemployment and would also play a role in the recovery of the African continent. Another priority will be to […]

The world’s sugar farmers have to limit their sugar output and find other uses for sugar cane and beet to stabilise world sugar prices, delegates at an international growers’ conference in Durban decided. The World Association of Beet and Cane Growers (WABCG) discussed how adverse weather, disease and over-production was hurting farmers, and threats from […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT AND REUTERS, Johannesburg | Saturday THEBE Petroleum Corp (Tepco) has become the first black-owned South African petroleum company to enter the country’s aviation fuel market after striking a two-month, R62m deal with South African Airways Cargo (SAA). The deal will see Tepco supply 10m litres of aviation fuel to SAA at Cape Town […]

CHARLES MANGWIRO, Maputo, | Saturday SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki will join his Mozambican counterpart Joaquim Chissano to officially inaugurate the US$1,3bn MOZAL aluminium smelter in Maputo on September 21. MOZAL, the biggest single direct investment in Mozambique since multi-party democracy in 1994, is also the anchor for the ambitious US$3,5bn Maputo development corridor initiative […]

The president of Malawi Bakili Muluzi has ordered all his cabinet ministers to disclose details of private companies they own or control as investigations into corruption in government gained momentum. Muluzi, currently on a private visit to Germany, said in a statement signed by Attorney General and Justice Minister Peter Fachi that public officers, including […]

EVIDENCE WA KA NGOBENI, Johannesburg | Friday THE Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, South Africa’s largest hospital, appears to have covered up a deadly power failure that crippled the overcrowded institution this month depriving it of life-support systems for several hours. At least three patients are believed to have died as a direct result of the […]

The Pretoria High Court has reserved judgment until Monday on Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri’s application to appeal to the Constitutional Court against an interdict preventing her from awarding South Africa’s third cellular phone licence. The Minister wants the Constitutional Court to decide whether the High Court has the power to prevent her awarding the licence […]

couture set Charl Blignaut It was a classic case of a headline in search of a story, but still, South African Fashion Week (SAFW) will one day be grateful to journalist Craig Jacobs. He may have been the subject of more elegantly hissed expletives than any other hack in the history of local fashion, but […]

Khadija Magardie A controversial column by leading political scientist Steven Friedman has been axed from South Africa’s only Jewish newspaper with the approval of the country’s chief rabbi. The column, The Other View, appeared fortnightly in the South African Jewish Report until Friedman’s unorthodox views became too much of a “kvetsh” (bothersome or needling, in […]