Staff Reporter

A VENGEFUL Malawian woman has been found guilty of rubbing pepper into the private parts of her husband’s alleged 15-year-old girlfriend and repeatedly writing the word ‘prostitute’ over her body with nail polish. Constance Kamundi (26) was sentenced to two years of hard labour by a magistrate’s court in the lakeshore district of Mangochi on […]

AFRICAN heads of state will hold a summit next month to forge a common stance against terrorism, the Senegalese news agency APS reported on Thursday. Quoting Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, currently on a visit to Switzerland, the agency said he told Swiss television that Africa should not be marginalized from a “planetary conflict” in the […]

NIGER police have arrested two Muslim priests for sending a letter to the US embassy demanding that Washington change its foreign policy, a source said on Thursday. Sheikh Souleymane Imam Younouss (75) and 40-year-old Elhadj Boubacar Issa were arrested on Wednesday, the source said. Younouss is president of the Association for Islamic Culture and Education […]

SOUTH African former archbishop Desmond Tutu is due to take up a posting at Harvard University in the United States where he will teach theology. The Johannesburg-based newspaper The Star quoted Michael Duga, a former official in the Clinton administration, as saying Tutu, archbishop of Cape Town until 1995, will leave for Harvard “very soon”. […]

AT least three people died when a Ukrainian ship carrying Sri Lankans seeking work in Europe caught fire and sank near the entrance to the Suez Canal, Egyptian port authorities said on Wednesday. Nine people were also reported missing among the 83 who were aboard the Galak which caught fire while loading provisions at the […]

HUNDREDS of thousands of people in central Mozambique, devastated by floods, face a serious threat of starvation and the situation is expected to worsen in coming months, the government said on Friday. “In a recent tour of that region we identified pockets of hunger involving about 350 000 people,” said National Disaster Management Institute (INGC) […]

Washington | Saturday AFGHAN forces captured three US “special forces” troops inside Afghanistan, a Gulf television report said on Saturday, as Washington won UN support for action against state sponsors of terrorism. Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television reported that three US soldiers and two US citizens of Afghan origin had been caught near the Iranian border carrying […]

Johannesburg | Sunday SOME 2 000 gays and lesbians took to the streets of Johannesburg Saturday for South Africa’s 12th annual Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade, celebrating tolerance and lamenting lives lost to Aids. Acting Constitutional Court Judge Edwin Cameron told his fellow marchers — bedecked in sequins, stiletto heels and slogans like “God loves […]

A SOUTH African court on Friday ordered that the country’s laws on adoption be changed to allow gay couples to adopt children, a report said. SABC public radio said the Johannesburg High Court made the ruling following an application by Judge Anna-Marie de Vos, who adopted two children six years ago. De Vos took the […]

Cape Town | Thursday SOUTH African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma called on Wednesday for the UN Security Council to be restructured, and issued an implicit call for it to be involved in any riposte to the terror attacks in the United States. “Whatever definitions and conventions — whether they be about terrorism, or something else […]

A NIGERIAN court has sentenced a policeman to death by hanging for the murder of a cab driver during a raid, a press report said on Friday. The Asaba high court in southern Nigeria on Thursday found 32-year-old sergeant Adegboye Ibikunle guilty of killing Godspower Edeha last year in a police raid on his house, […]

A NEW defence bill before the Namibian parliament that aims to restrict media reporting on military activities is causing concern among journalists and human rights organisations. The draft legislation for the defence bill, which was introduced in the National Assembly on Tuesday by Defence Minister Erkki Nghimtina, deems it an offence to publish information which […]

SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki and six senior ministers will travel to Japan on Sunday for a three-day state visit starting on Monday which will be aimed at boosting trade and bilateral ties. But no agreements are expected to be signed on Mbeki’s first visit as president to South Africa’s largest trading partner in Asia, […]

FOLLOWING a 70% rise in deaths from malaria, the Namibian health ministry has asked parliament for an additional two million dollars to combat the disease. Petrina Usiku, the manager of the ministry’s malaria programme, said it would launch a three-month drive on Monday to spray DDT and other anti-malarial agents over almost half of the […]

Harare | Saturday THE Zimbabwe government on Friday said it was still open to continue dialogue with white farmers in a bid to resolve the land country’s land crisis. “Doors of government are open to any negotiations that would work towards the implementation of the Abuja agreement,” Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said. An accord was […]

HUMAN rights groups welcomed a Nigerian court’s decision to acquit a six-year-old boy accused of drowning a baby, and said the case should not have been prosecuted in the first place. The child, who lives in the Dutsen Reme quarters in the town of Bakori, in Katsina state, and a middle-aged man, Sahabi Adamu, were […]

FRANCOIS-XAVIER HARISPE, Islamabad | Sunday THEY flooded in with hopes of scoops from Afghanistan, got stuck behind closed borders in Pakistan and their numbers have reached such a critical mass that the dateline joke is of “Journalistan.” Since the start of the current crisis surrounding Afghanistan, the Pakistan authorities have registered 450 newly arrived journalists […]

AN Mpumalanga traffic officer and a driving school owner appeared briefly in the Evander regional court on Thursday in connection with massive licence fraud. Leandra traffic officer Andrea Lourens and the owner of Ace Driving School in Springs, Lenish Moodley, are out on R5 000 bail each. Lourens is accused of issuing allegedly fraudulent drivers’ […]

NAWAAL DEANE, DAVID MACFARLANE AND MUNGO SOGGOT, Johannesburg | Friday THE South African government’s oil agency, the Central Energy Fund, has pumped at least R80-million into an unproven, coal-based HIV/Aids treatment that is being tested on Tanzanian soldiers. There are striking parallels between the drug trials, conducted under the auspices of the University of Pretoria, […]

DREW FORREST Johannesburg | Friday A UNIVERSITY research unit has calculated, at current budgetary levels, it will take 150 years to complete South Africa’s land restitution programme. The research, by the Programme for Land Agrarian Studies (Plaas) at the University of the Western Cape, strongly suggests that government plans to accelerate land reform – in […]

BARRY STREEK AND MUNGO SOGGOT, Johannesburg | Friday BILLY Masetlha, the controversy-shrouded Director General of the Department of Home Affairs, is being tipped to head the new Presidential Intelligence Unit (PIU). The PIU will be housed in the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), and will report directly to the Office of the President. Minister of Intelligence […]

The country offers an experience unsullied by commercial overtones and blessed by an absence of tourist coaches, writes Angus Begg Today Africa’s wildlife destination of choice, there was a time, only a few decades ago, when Zambia was best known for not much more than abundant copper deposits, Kenneth Kaunda and, by Southern African standards, […]

Mungo Soggot and Stefaans Brmmer Telkom has stepped up its purge of its security network, cancelling its contract with Royal Security, the company at the centre of a long-running investigation, and axing two more managers. The investigation initially targeted the parastatal’s former deputy chief operating officer, Bheki Langa, who resigned in July ahead of a […]

Existing laws could be used against people who fail to disclose their HIV-positive status while having unprotected sex Belinda Beresford The South African Law Commission has advised against laws to prosecute people who intentionally expose others to the HI virus, saying such legislation would be impossible to police or implement. Rather, the state should concentrate […]

Mail & Guardian Reporter It is no secret that international telecommunications deregulation has opened the door to a myriad expansion opportunities in other countries. The popular trend is for telecommunications operators to move into markets abroad, yet Telkom is continuing to position itself as a regional telecommunications leader and information technology powerhouse. Randall Seidl, Telkom’s […]

Linda Martindale Using a computer is daunting enough for beginners, especially if you are forced to do it in a language that is not your own. But last week South African firm Translate.org.za released the entire computing experience in Xhosa, covering the full desktop, Web browser, word processor, spreadsheet and e-mail application. The programmes have […]

Thabo Mohlala Not so long ago, it was a rare sight to see a black person, let alone a woman, driving a train. This was because certain categories of jobs, including train drivers, were reserved for white people. However, as political change gains momentum, some black people have broken job barriers, but the beneficiaries are […]

analysis Richard Tomlinson When it comes to housing, the worst off are the worst served. Housing international best practice is based on delivery to a family, and so too is South Africa’s housing policy. In both, the conception of the family is that of a Western nuclear family. The consequences are to bar access to […]

Glenda Daniels More than 50 000 delegates from around the world are expected at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa next year making it a bigger event than the recent United Nations conference on racism. South Africans have begun to formulate their positions and representation for the summit, due to be staged […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The Eastern Cape legislature this week reacted with shock at a damning report showing horrific details of sexual abuse, rape and exploitation of teenage pupils at provincial schools. The report, which was compiled by the legislature’s standing committee on education, revealed how teachers at a number of provincial schools used their […]