Lusaka | Wednesday ZAMBIA police released an outspoken opposition politician and two journalists late on Tuesday after charging them with defaming President Frederick Chiluba, one of their defence lawyers said. The three surrendered themselves to the police on Tuesday morning after their arrest was ordered at the weekend following a newspaper article which claimed Chiluba […]
MAXIM KNIAZKOV, Washington | Wednesday THE US government came under fire on Tuesday over its stance during Rwanda’s 1994 mass killings following the release of declassified official documents showing Washington anticipated events now seen as among the most gruesome atrocities of the late 20th century. “The US response was literally running away from any responsibility,” […]
A JOINT team of experts from the Sudanese government, UN relief agencies and NGOs left on Tuesday for the central Sudan Sennar State, to assess the situation after days of heavy rains and storms. High waters of the Blue Nile have already inundated a number of villages in Sennar State, where 500 homes and numerous […]
EVARISTO CUMBANE, Maputo | Wednesday SENA Sugar Estates — abandoned by its owners, bombed by rebels, and threatened by raging floodwaters — is about to complete its transformation from ruin to a potent symbol of Mozambique’s post-war recovery. The sugar mill in the central town of Marromeu, flanked by the mighty Zambezi River and surrounded […]
THE Nigerian navy has rescued a ship stranded at sea with around 200 passengers aboard which was running out of food and water. The Nigerian-owned MV Mulolinja was rescued on Saturday in difficulties off the coast of Brass, a town in southern Bayelsa State, the newspaper The Punch reported. The ship has been re-supplied with […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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. […]
Namibia’s Ministry of Health and Social Services received a donation of 100 bicycles and 100_000 condoms from the People’s Republic of China. The donation is to enable the government to educate people in the remote parts of the country about the disease. Health Minister Dr Libertina Amathila said that her ministry had considered providing house-to-house […]
A WORKER from southern Egypt forced his daughter to swallow poison to kill herself, deeming she was dishonoured, the al-Ahram daily reported on Thursday. The woman, Enaan Mohamed (23) had fled to Cairo a year earlier after a failed marriage. She was then taken against her will to the family home in Sohaq in Upper […]
BRITISH officials denied reports on Thursday the former colonial power had plans to evacuate British citizens from strife ridden Zimbabwe. The British Embassy released a statement denying a report in an independent Zimbabwean newspaper that Britain was planning the mass evacuation of some 25 000 white Zimbabweans with British citizenship in the face of the […]