Staff Reporter

FUGITIVE German billionaire Jurgen Harksen has finally won a legal battle to avoid being extradited to his home country to face more than 300 charges of fraud and tax evasion. The Cape High Court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to extradite him to Germany, Harksen’s lawyer Paul Katzeff said. “In seven years I have […]

PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki has lost a considerable quantity of his 20-year-old KWV brandy after a 27-year-old man apparently broke into Genadendal, Mbeki’s Cape residence, and tucked into alcohol and food. Police said that it appeared that the thief, who has been taken into custody, broke into Genadendal between 1 and 4 September. Mbeki, who is […]

11 000 awaiting-trial prisoners charged with petty crimes and who cannot afford bail will be released from South Africa’s overcrowded prisons, the Correctional Services Department has announced. An official said the move was aimed at alleviating the cramped conditions in the country’s 236 prisons which hold 172 000 convicted felons, and 65 000 people awaiting […]

AFP, Windhoek | Wednesday OFFICIALS from the world’s biggest diamond producing countries met in Windhoek to find ways of curbing the trade in conflict gems, but their two-day conference got off to a false start with Sierra Leone and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) failing to attend. The Namibian director of mines, Kennedy Hamutenya, played […]

ONE of three men sentenced to life imprisonment in June for the rape of two Belgian tourists has been refused leave to challenge his conviction and sentence by the Appeal Court in Bloemfontein. John Tee and two other men were found guilty by the Port Elizabeth High Court in June of raping two women to […]

MALAWI has set November 21 as the date for its first multiparty local elections, an electoral official indicated. “We are all ready now, and this is the final fixed date,” electoral commission spokesman Festus Lipenga said. Malawi became a democracy after former dictator Kamuzu Banda’s rule ended in 1994, but the southern African nation has […]

THE first sod has been turned for a maximum security prison to be built in Louis Trichardt in the Northern Province. The prison will be built as a public-private partnership and will house 3 024 inmates and create 1 500 jobs, of which 600 will be permanent. National minister of correctional services, Ben Skosana, said […]

POLICE are investigating the possibility that the five people shot dead and 10 others wounded at the KwaMashu men’s hostel north of Durban were led into an ambush. The shooting followed a group of angry hostel residents marching to a local police station to demand the release of two suspects arrested for a murder. Three […]

MINERAL and metallurgical technology company Mintek has imported 60 tons of hazardous waste from Australia in disregard of a worldwide ban. According to environmental groups Groundwork and Earthlife Africa, the waste contains high levels of lead and arsenic and is in contravention of the Basel Convention, which banned the export of hazardous waste and of […]

ANGOLAN army officers have warned President Jose Eduardo dos Santos of serious discontent as troops go starving and even naked while allocated funds are missing. Young soldiers “are hungry, going naked or have no boots … and are being driven to quit their units,” according to a letter to Dos Santos signed by several dozen […]

TWO of the world’s leading medical and emergency assistance companies have merged operations in Africa to address the needs of corporate clients there. International SOS (SOS) and Medical Rescue International of Africa (MRI) said the “multi-million dollar” merger would allow them to provide better medical care and emergency aid to local and multinational clients operating […]

PALEONTOLOGISTS are hoping that a 700 000-year-old human tooth discovered near Cornelia in the north-eastern Free State will shed more light on a little known period of human prehistory. The “extremely big” and white upper molar of an archaic ancestor of modern man was found in layer of mud in a pit that is believed […]

A TWO-year-old toddler is recovering in the intensive care unit of a Cairo hospital after falling from a sixth floor balcony. Isra Hassan Ramadan was playing with her brothers on the balcony of their flat in the Abu Wafiya district of northern Cairo when she plummeted to the street below. She was taken to the […]

INTERNATIONAL fugitive and former Anglican bishop Samuel Musabyimana, wanted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity by the United Nations Tribunal for Rwanda, has been released by mistake due to bungling by the police’s Scorpions unit, SABC radio news reported. Musabyimana entered South Africa on a false passport this year and was arrested in […]

THE Nigerian government has given communities in the country’s oil-producing region a two-week deadline to stop vandalising oil pipelines or face the deployment of soldiers to maintain security. The managing director of the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Jackson Gaius-Obaseki, said the company has lost more than US$34.7m this year through pipeline vandalisation. In […]

REUTERS, Johannesburg | Tuesday FOUR South African companies had teamed up to form Prosperity, the country’s first black-owned and second-largest firm of benefit consultants and actuaries. NBC Financial Services, Kopana Ke Matla Investment Company, Plc Holdings and Peregrine were the partners in the new group, worth R100m. Kopano is the investment arm of COSATU while […]

AFP, Harare | Tuesday HOPES of an immediate resumption of aid to Zimbabwe by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are far-fetched because the government remained defiant on “non-negotiable” conditions. The nation’s leading opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said that following their meeting with the visiting IMF team, it appeared unlikely aid would […]

RUGBY supremo Louis Luyt has lodged a high court application to have Golden Lions Rugby Union’s (GLRU) chief executive officer Johan Prinsloo removed as a director of the Ellis Park Stadium (Pty) Ltd and as a trustee of the Golden Lions Sport Trust. Luyt has accused Prinsloo of conspiring against the union. The court is […]

A YOUNG Northern Province couple have been arrested after their newborn baby boy was thrown to the ground and its father jumped on it several times. The battered body was then thrown into a pit toilet. Police said the mother had given birth along a river, with the father present, and that once it was […]

THE United States has imposed trade sanctions against Swaziland after months of haggling about industrial relations concerns, say the small southern African kingdom’s two main business organisations. The Federation of Swaziland Employers and the Swaziland Chamber of Commerce and Industry warned in a joint statement that the country’s strategic industries would be the worst hit […]

A DNA-based paternity test has proved that presidential spokesman Parks Mankahlana is the father of a nine-year-old Mpumalanga boy, the child’s attorney Vusi Ngobe said. Mankahlana previously publicly denied fathering the boy with Thalitha Mthethwa during a hearing at the KaBokweni Maintenance Court near White River in July, and refused to pay child support unless […]

POLICE have arrested six people in southern Tanzania on suspicion of cannibalism after they reportedly dug up the body of a child buried last week, a newspaper and radio have reported. The suspects were found with large chunks of human flesh, two pairs of shoes made of human skin, four sets of human skins and […]

DEVASTATING fires have claimed the lives of seven people and caused damage estimated at hundreds of thousands of rand in the eastern Free State and Johannesburg. Another fire which started in the southern Free State and spread to the northern areas of the Eastern Cape was brought under control without any reported injuries or fatalities. […]

SOUTH Africa lost another bid to host a world event when Slovakia was awarded the 2004 world gold panning championships. South African bid committee member Graham Dominy phoned from Zlotorya in Poland to say Slovakia won the bid by 33 votes to 22. The committee is now pinning its hopes on the five South Africans […]

AUTHORITIES in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital, have set up a scheme to clear the streets of the city of corpses in a bid to spruce up its image. Fresh and decomposing corpses litter Lagos streets daily, posing health hazards to more than 10 million residents in Nigeria’s most populous city. Most of the corpses are […]

CHUENE HAMESE and JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Pietersburg | Monday SOUTHERN Africa’s tribe of black Jews, which is believed to have fled its Middle Eastern homeland and settled in Venda roughly 1000 years ago, has gathered in Venda to plan the revival of its unique culture. Lemba Cultural Association president Professor Matshaya Razwimaisani Mathivha Seremane confirmed that […]

GROOTE Schuur Hospital’s world-renowned heart transplant unit faces possible closure if a new quota system is introduced forcing the hospital to perform perhaps only five heart transplants a year, the Cape Argus newspaper has reported. This would shut off access to heart transplants – and the consequent chance at a new life – for the […]

PANDEMONIUM broke out in the Cape High Court when the four Franschhoek Pass murderers were each sentenced to two life terms in prison. Relatives of the accused started shouting as the sentences were passed, forcing the judge to raise his voice in an attempt to complete the sentencing of Heinrico Pietersen, 18, Morne Lakay, 23, […]

SWAZILAND has agreed to open its prisons for convicts in Rwanda, easing pressure on the United Nations to find suitable prisons for them. Jails in Rwanda have been crammed with awaiting-trial prisoners since the 1994 genocide and thousands of suspects are expected to be tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. UN assistant secretary […]

THE community of Pilgrim’s Rest in Mpumalanga is counting the hours before the 2004 host of the World Gold Panning Championships is announced in Poland. If South Africa is announced as bid winner, the town will erupt into a street party, says executive member of the South African Gold Panning Association, Cheryl van Dyk. “Gold […]

A POLITICAL slanging match over a Swazi chieftaincy has erupted into a media reform row after Information Minister Mntonzima Dlamini banned two chiefs from using the airwaves but allowed King Mswati III’s brother to continue airing his views. After banning his two opponents, the minister said Magugu could continue making announcements over the national radio […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Sunday THE ousted leader of Zimbabwe’s war veterans association has been reinstated as the leader of the group that occupied white-owned farms in the run-up to the country’s June elections. Chenjerai “Hitler” Hundzvi was ousted from the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association last weekend after being accused of running the […]