Staff Reporter

THE Nigerian government on Wednesday signed a $1-billion oilfield development agreement with Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell. The EA/EJA oil field, estimated to have reserves of 350-million barrels, is expected to go into operation in the second half of next year. The accord between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and Shell Petroleum Development Company is aimed […]

ETHIOPIA’S former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, who lives in exile in Zimbabwe, travelled to South Africa this week for medical treatment, an official said Friday. A spokesman for the South African High Commission in Harare confirmed a report in the Independent newspaper that Mengistu entered South Africa on a Zimbabwean diplomatic passport. Diplomatic sources said […]

FOUR neatly dressed Orlando West boys aged between seven and 10 years again appeared in the Protea Magistrate’s Court on Thursday to face charges of sexually assaulting a two-year-old girl. The boys, dressed in checked shirts and denims — seemingly unaware of what was happening to them — made their way to the dock while […]

SOUTH Africa and the United Arab Emirates signed a defence cooperation accord on Thursday at the Dubai air show, to work to boost arms sales and co-operate in military training and joint exercises. The accord, which took three years to negotiate, was signed by Emirati armed forces chief of staff Lieutenant General Sheikh Mohammad bin […]

MOROKA Swallows’ Brazilian-born coach Walter Da Silva was on Wednesday night the victim of a three-hour kidnap ordeal when he was surprised by two men at his home in Johannesburg. Da Silva was forced into a car and was driven around Befordview while being threatened by the men. Da Silva was allegedly told not to […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pietermaritzburg | Friday 8.25pm. SRI Lanka A were looking steady on the second day of their match against South Africa A in Pietermaritzburg on Friday. The locals took their first innings total from its overnight 192 for five to 296, and the Sri Lankans replied with 64/2 at stumps. Play started late because […]

A TOUGH Castle Premiership clash between Orlando Pirates and Kaiser Chiefs at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on Saturday was sparked by a classic goal by Pirates’ Dennis Lota fifteen minutes before the final whistle. Lota dribbled past three defenders to gently slot the ball into an open goal. Pirates took the game 1-nil worth […]

THE Nigerian panel investigating human rights abuses has already received about 30000 petitions from about 10000 victims or perpetrators. These include submissions by high-ranking officials in the former military government headed by General Sani Abacha, according to Chukwudifu Oputa, head of the Human Rights Violation Investigation Panel of Nigeria. Oputa and seven other officials with […]

US writer and composer Paul Bowles died early Thursday at a hospital in Tangiers of cardiac arrest, medical sources said. He was 88. Bowles, who would have turned 89 next month, was hospitalized in Tangiers, where he made his home in northern Morocco, after falling into a coma because of a cardio-respiratory crisis. Bowles, a […]

David Robbins All public universities and technikons are partially funded by the state via a formula which calculates individual institutional funding according to a set of established criteria. In a tertiary sector in considerable flux, a deal of dissatisfaction has been expressed about the formula currently in use. There’s also talk of using a modified […]

Mercedes Sayagues This week, the Mozambican government revoked the controversial concession of 236 000ha granted in 1996 to American James Ulysses Blanchard III, who died in March this year. Officially, Blanchard paid nothing for the land stretching south of Maputo to KwaZulu-Natal. The area is likely to be declared a World Heritage Site for its […]

Peter Dickson The Eastern Cape government’s sorry saga of in-house corruption and “creative bookkeeping” amid a legacy of poverty and neglect has been the butt of post- apartheid political satire for much of the last five years. This week, for the first time since 1994 and amid growing public outrage and open scorn at Bisho’s […]

THE son of paedophile Gert van Rooyen, who escaped from a Pretoria police station early on Thursday, has been recaptured. Gerhard van Rooyen, 31, was re-arrested at 6.30pm while walking along the Old Warmbaths Road near Zambezi Drive in Pretoria North. Early on Thursday morning he apparently asked to make a phone call, then slipped […]

things to come Are universities in turmoil or in ferment? Are they collapsing, or merely in flux? David Robbins looks at the tertiary sector The troubles afflicting South African universities and technikons are many, and dramatic: campus protests, lecture boycotts, revelations of institutional collapse, widespread financial investigations, crippling amounts outstanding from unpaid student fees, rumours […]

Dignitaries were impressed, but ordinary people were puzzled or unaffected by the monarch’s visit last week. Katy Bauer went to gawk at the queen To live, not as a human being, but as a symbol, is the terrible fate of the British monarch. Fortunately for Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, this state of affairs seems […]

Among other things, the new Firearms Control Bill will deny people guilty of crimes of violence the right to own a firearm. Barry Streek reports Gun-free zones, such as bars and casinos, are to be created in terms of the new Firearms Control Bill, and ordinary people will not be allowed to carry firearms there. […]

THE last of the British tourists injured in the September 27 coach accident on the Long Tom Pass in Mpumalanga was discharged from a Nelspruit hospital on Thursday. Medi-Clinic spokeswoman Elsabee Coetzee confirmed that tour manager Carole Sandover, who is still in a coma, was airlifted from the hospital to Johannesburg by air ambulance on […]

A new photo exhibition takes the mask as its inspiration. Wayne Robbins investigates It’s a late Saturday afternoon in 1996. Corner of Rissik and Wolmarans streets, Johannesburg. A boy finds a paper mask in a bin, puts it on. African kid in a discarded European mask. Graeme Williams takes a picture. For Williams, photography is […]

Public works programmes in the Western Cape have proved to be an effective method of poverty relief, reports Barry Streek Public works programmes in the Western Cape have, in general, been successful and more cost-effective in transferring benefits to the poor using direct cash grants. Researchers at the University of Cape Town’s Southern African labour […]

Gavin Evans Boxing Now that he holds the long-overdue honour of being undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, Lennox Claudius Lewis will be the man to beat in the premier division. The 34-year-old Jamaican-Canadian- Englishman has opted to spend the next two years cashing in on his titles and status. Of course he will have […]

in court Marianne Merten Despite seven successful asset and cash forfeitures across the country recently, the asset forfeiture unit will be in court next Monday to defend its seizure of the homes, businesses, luxury cars, jewellery and cash of alleged Cape Town drug dealer Gavin Carolus. Last week, it seized a Cape Flats tavern operated […]

LOCAL surfer Heather Clark from Port Shepstone has qualified for the 2000 Women’s World Championship Tour (WCT), making her the only South African woman to reach the top echelon of international surfing since Wendy Botha in 1987. Although Clark failed to advance to the quarterfinals of the World Qualifying Series (WQS) Hawaiian Pro at Haleiwa, […]

South African soccer desperately needs a memorable encounter between Chiefs and Pirates to rescue its tarnished reputation, writes Andrew Muchineripi A classic league encounter between Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates at FNB Stadium on Saturday is not so much a wish as a necessity. South African soccer is ailing and desperately needs a blood transfusion. […]

out on racism Marianne Merten A Cape soldier is being court-martialled this week on charges dating back to events three years ago when he and a colleague spoke out about racism in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). Staff Sergeant Herman Pheiffer is charged with four counts of being absent without leave (Awol) between […]

Sue Williamson Obituary One of South Africa’s best known and most accessible and inventive ceramic artists, Bonnie Ntshalintshali, was lost to Aids this month, at the age of 32. In 1985 when Fee Halsted-Berning started a ceramic studio at Ardmore, a farm in the central Drakensberg of KwaZulu-Natal, Ntshalintshali became her first pupil, and then […]

David Robbins At the last annual general meeting of the South African Universities Vice- Chancellors’ Association (Sauvca), outgoing chair Dr Mamphela Ramphele declared that the various transformations within the association added up to “an amazing achievement”. Ramphele also remarked that CEO Piyushi Kotecha, a driving force behind much of the transformation processes, had inherited a […]

EGYPTIAN leaders are furious at suggestions a co-pilot intentionally crashed Flight 990 in a suicide plunge and are struggling to keep the affair from escalating into a diplomatic wrangle with Washington. The affair threatened to widen into a rift between Muslims and the West as Egyptians voiced anger at “culturally ignorant” US officials who hinted […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Vista University is facing court action by a student for irregularities and unfair treatment. According to law student Magoshi Mamaila, officials at Vista’s Mamelodi campus unlawfully charge a R30 fee for student cards, although university regulations say students are supposed to be issued with them at no extra cost. Mamaila’s lawyer, […]

courts be merged? SERGEANT AT THE BAR This column raised the issue of relationship between the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal during the watch of Dullah Omar over the Ministry of Justice. Now, as appeared from a report in last week’s Mail & Guardian, the new minister, Penuell Maduna is treating the […]

Marguerite Poland’s new novel is set in a boys’ school. She spoke to Jane Rosenthal Marguerite Poland looks like any ordinary white South African lift-club mum; elegantly but conservatively dressed, she is obliging and forthcoming and friendly. But those who are familiar with her novels will know that she does not flinch from the hard […]

still warm Neil Manthorp Cricket In ancient Muslim culture a man was required to marry his brother’s widow, in the event of his death, of course, within a month. Not much time for grieving, let alone getting to know each other. To those outside the culture, the practice might even seem a little crude. There […]

EDITOR of the Durban-based Daily News Kaizer Nyatsumba is suing a security company for R1-million after security guards allegedy assaulted him at Gauteng’s Eastgate shopping centre on Thursday. The guards who work for Baron Security apparently accused Nyatsumba of stealing an old Ford and abandoning it in the parking area. The guards allegedly tried to […]