THERE were toothy grins all round on Tuesday when Northern Province health MEC Sello Moloto handed over 12 mobile dental clinics worth R10-million as part of national oral health month. Two clinics will be stationed in each health district in the province as of the end of August to take basic dental care to thousands […]
THE highest authority in Islam, the Cairo-based Al-Azhar, gave the final go-ahead on Tuesday to an unprecedented film on the life of the Islamic prophet Mohammad. The film, “Mohammad, the Last Prophet,” by former Disney director Richard Rich, was approved in principle on May 16 by Al-Azhar’s Center for Islamic Research provided that an image […]
HOTEL owners and bar owners in the northern Nigerian city of Kano have threatened to take ‘self-defence’ measures against Islamic militants who have destroyed hundreds of gallons of alcohol in recent days. Members of the Hisbah, a state-backed Islamic vigilante group that enforces implementation of the strict Islamic code, the Sharia, in northern Nigeria, at […]
A TEAM of nine basketball players from the Central African Republic, their trainer, his assistant and an official all went missing during a stopover in Paris on their way home last week. The group stopped over in Paris on August 13 after playing an African Cup of Nations match in Rabat, Morocco, and has not […]
MEDIA conglomerate AOL Time Warner is cutting 1 200 workers from its America Online division, the company announced on Tuesday. The company also said it was merging its various online entities into one giant, unified Internet company.The restructuring eliminates the postions, the company said. In addition, AOL said it was sacking another 500 from its […]
ANNA BORZELLO, Kampala | Tuesday A MULTINATIONAL African insurance agency, covering risks ranging from war to repossession and aimed at boosting direct investment in the continent, was born here Monday with seven countries coming on board. “The ATI is a scheme that is telling investors, please go ahead and trade, and if a coup d’etat […]
Harare | Tuesday ZIMBABWE’S struggling economy has suffered another blow with an outbreak of foot-and-mouth cattle disease, forcing a halt in beef exports, newspaper reports said on Tuesday. The outbreak was detected August 16 outside Zimbabwe’s second city of Bulawayo, according to the privately owned Daily News. Some 800 of 7 680 cattle awaiting slaughter […]
PRIMARY school children in South Africa are being offered a class project that requires them to plan and “execute” an armed robbery, the Sunday Argus newspaper reported. The newspaper said the teaching module, on offer to schools throughout South Africa, was the brainchild of SkoolCor, a Cape Town publishing company. The teaching aid, titled “Guilty […]
A BRITISH former aid worker accused of sexually abusing young orphans in his charge appeared in an Ethiopian court on Monday, some six years after fleeing the country and changing his name. The crimes of “sexual child abuse” allegedly committed by David Christie (59), who has since changed his name to Allen, took place in […]
Bloemfontein | Tuesday A WHITE South African man accused of killing a black employee by dragging him behind a pickup truck pleaded not guilty in the Bloemfontein High Court Monday, saying he could not remember the incident. “When my wife visited me in prison the next morning, I told her: ‘They say I killed someone, […]
AN alcoholic who claimed Satan forced him to rape his 11-year-old niece over two years was handed a life sentence on Monday. The 57-year-old man from Mandulo village south of Malelane in Mpumalanga pleaded guilty to rape in the Nelspruit circuit of the Pretoria High Court. He admitted he raped her three times in 1998 […]
UNIDENTIFIED corpses that have lying in Nelspruit’s Avbob mortuary for as long as two years will be given a mass pauper’s burial on Tuesday. Avbob official Lucas Mazia said the undertaker as well as police had tried to trace the families of the dead, but many had died without any form of identification. He said […]
STANDARD Bank has been ranked 146th in The Banker magazine’s annual Top 1 000 World Bank rating a jump of 13 from last year’s ranking. In addition, Standard Bank was also rated the top sub-Saharan bank in the survey, which ranks the world’s commercial banks. The rankings are based on Tier One capital as defined […]
A LEGISLATOR in Nigeria’s southern Rivers State was shot dead at the weekend by unknown gunmen while a top government official was shot and injured in another state, radio Nigeria reported on Monday. Monday Ndor was shot and killed as he arrived at his residence late Saturday in Port Harcourt, the state capital, the radio […]
A SECOND student from the University of Asmara has died while in desert detention for defying government work orders, the university’s president Woldeab Issak told parents on Sunday. Woldeab said that the student, Yemane Tekee, who was undergoing treatment for heat stroke in the intensive care unit at Halibet Hospital, died in the early hours […]
THE Zambian government has shut down Radio Phoenix, a leading privately owned station, Information Minister Vernon Mwaanga announced on Sunday. Mwaanga was quoted by state radio as saying that the government has suspended the broadcasting licence of Radio Phoenix because the station failed to renew its licence in accordance with Zambian law. Radio Phoenix, Zambia’s […]
ABOUT 1 000 activists demonstrated in Durban on Sunday to demand that the government coordinate a campaign to isolate Israel. The rally, called by the Palestine Support Committee in South Africa and the Durban Social Forum, preceded a week-long UN-sponsored conference on racism opening in the east coast city on August 31. The United States […]
THE South African government “will not tolerate” any violent protests at a UN conference on racism starting in Durban on August 31, Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Sunday. “We do not see any reason whatsoever for anyone to be violent in Durban on an issue about racism,” she told SABC television. “My message to […]
NIGERIA’S foreign reserves rose to $10,35-billion in May, for a 1,7% rise over the previous month, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said on Monday. Of the amount, $1,4- billion accrued to the nation’s coffers in May alone, 5,4% above April’s estimate, the CBN said in a statement here. The CBN attributed the positive development […]
SUDAN’S armed forces claimed on Sunday to have killed 15 rebels in the Nuba mountains region of central Sudan, forcing the rest of the attackers to flee, the official Suna news agency reported. Armed forces representative General Mohammed Beshir Suleiman said the army had inflicted “heavy losses” on the rebels, capturing a large amount of […]
A MULTI-national African insurance agency, covering risks ranging from war to repossession and aimed at boosting direct investment in the continent, was born in Kampala on Monday with seven countries coming on board. The African Trade Insurance Agency (ATIA) “is an African-owned agency which was set up with the support of the World Bank at […]
THIRTY-seven Nigerian couples have had their unions blessed by the Catholic Church at a group ceremony in Gwagwalada, near the capital Abuja, official radio reported on Sunday. The unprecedented group wedding ceremony on Saturday, presided over by Abuja Archbishop John Onaiyekan, was attended by some couples who had been together for as long as 50 […]
Harare | Monday A HIGH Court judge on Monday has granted conditional bail to 21 white farmers arrested two weeks ago on charges of inciting violence in northern Zimbabwe. Judge Rita Makarau granted the farmers bail of 100 000 Zimbabwe dollars (about 1 800 US), but said that 20 of the farmers could not return […]
FOUR survivors of a deadly ambush last week by Angola’s Unita rebels of a passenger train east of Luanda have died in hospital of their wounds, a medical doctor said on Thursday. Their deaths bring to 256 the number of people killed in the attack. More than 160 people were wounded. Doctor Waldemiro Diogo said […]
Paris | Saturday ACCORDING to information gathered by Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF – Reporters Without Borders), members of Malawi’s youth league of the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) assaulted Brian Ligomeka, correspondent of the South-African agency African Eye News Service, on 12 August 2001. The journalist was covering the arrival of foreign heads of state […]
Harare | Saturday ZIMBABWE may declare a state of emergency if a bill is passed in Washington that threatens sanctions against the country, Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge said on Friday. He told state television in an interview that Zimbabwe would campaign against the bill, but if it failed to stop its passage into law, a […]
THE UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) sought answers Friday as to why one of its helicopters came under fire in a rebel zone this week despite a ceasefire accord. The UN helicopter was hit by 14 bullets on Thursday during a routine flight between Uvira and Kalemie in eastern DRC, […]
EMSIE FERREIRA, Cape Town | Saturday THE peace process in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will shift up a gear on Monday when members of government, rebel groups and civil society begin week-long talks on reviving political dialogue. The much-delayed talks are taking place in the Botswanan capital Gaborone under the mediation of that […]
A MAN went on the rampage and stabbed six people at Ondangwa’s Oluno informal settlement on Wednesday. All the victims – who were knifed in the head, chest, arms or stomach – were hospitalised. Absalom Josef from Onambango village near Ondangwa, who was arrested in connection with the stabbings, is in the Onandjokwe hospital along […]
A FORMER British aid worker has been arrested in Ethiopia on suspicion of trafficking and sexually abusing orphans, the Foreign Office said on Saturday. David Allen (59) was detained in Addis Ababa after arriving on a flight from Zambia where he was planning to set up a children’s centre. Allen was a former delegate in […]
A STUDENT from the University of Asmara has died while in desert detention for defying government work orders, student sources claimed on Thursday. Yirga Yosef, a third-year university student, died of heat stroke on Tuesday following three days of detention in the desert, in a place called Wia, some 30 kilometers from the port city […]
THE trial of an Egyptian businessman accused of having too many wives and of corrupting under-age girls resumed in Cairo on Saturday. The trial was adjourned until August 22 for Sayed Ragab al-Sawarki (51) a self-professed devout Muslim who was arrested in May on his return to Cairo from a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. […]