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 […]
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 […]
NO less than 52% of severely injured patients admitted to the casualty section of the Johannesburg Hospital are HIV, The Citizen reported on Thursday. The figures were collected by Professor Ken Boffard, on the basis of blind sampling of blood drawn from patients over the last year. The figures cannot be accurately extrapolated to the […]
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 […]
POLICE in Botswana’s Thamaga Village are investigating an incident case in which a 40-year-old pastor of the Botswana Babirwa New Jerusalem Church drowned while baptising his followers. It is reported that the congregation had a night vigil the day before and the following morning went to a nearby river for a baptism ceremony. The pastor, […]
Lagos | Friday VIGILANTES in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos crucified and then set ablaze a suspected robber, in the most grisly demonstration of violent vigilantism, the newspaper Vanguard reported on Friday. Akanni Arikuyeri, a suspected armed robber, was seized and nailed to a cross by the members of the anti-crime vigilante group, the Odua Peoples […]
A MOZAMBICAN woman and her three-year-old child who illegally tried to enter South Africa through its largest game reserve were trampled to death by an elephant, a Kruger National Park representative said on Thursday. William Mabasa said the woman and child were part of a group of about 14 Mozambicans who tried to get into […]
FORMER South African president Nelson Mandela will continue radiation treatment for his prostate cancer after considering all options, his office said on Wednesday. Mandela’s representative Zelda la Grange said in a statement that two physicians, a radiotherapist and five urologists — including Mandela’s own urologist — met on August 3 to review the 83-year-old’s treatment. […]
MARIANNE MERTEN, Cape Town | Friday A BILL of at least R220 000 – excluding legal fees of tens of thousands of rands – is expected for the two official probes into whether public submissions on the renaming of two Cape Town streets might have been manipulated. The costs for the current inquiry by corruption […]
SURVIVAL International, a world-wide organisation supporting tribal peoples, has intensified its battle with the government of Botswana over the situation of the Basarwa. In their annual report, published to coincide with the United Nations’ Day for Indigenous Peoples (9 August), the organisation has identified the most vulnerable tribe in each of three continents; Africa, Asia […]
SULPHURIC acid has accidentally spilled into the municipal water reservoir of Kitwe, Zambia’s second largest city in the northern Copperbelt mining region, a municipal official said on Wednesday. The spillage occurred after a train transporting the chemical derailed. Municipal authorities in Kitwe, 400 kilometres north of Lusaka, have shut down the water supplies to the […]
We need to look afresh at how technology can bring high-quality services to all, writes Chris Bell While fibre optic cables are today being laid around the coastline and in major African cities, there still remain vast tracks of the continent where populations are unlikely to benefit from these investments. The danger is obvious: rural […]
Paul Kirk From June 1 last year to July 4 this year, 106 police were dismissed from the South African Police Service in KwaZulu-Natal. Seven of them were convicted of murder. These figures were released last week by the minister of safety and security in response to a question in Parliament about how many police […]
Local soccer cannot seem to avoid controversy Ntuthuko Maphumulo Just as the Premier Soccer League (PSL) was about to breathe a sigh of relief that the end of its off-the-field problems was in sight, trouble blew up on the field. Efforts by African Wanderers and Bloemfontein Celtic to extend their stay in the elite league […]
A NEW oil pipeline fire is threatening to force Anglo-Dutch oil group Royal Dutch/Shell to cut exports by 200 000 barrels per day, a newspaper report said on Friday. The newspaper This Day quoted Shell representative Precious Omoku as saying production was threatened by the fire which Shell blamed on vandalism of its oil pipelines […]
Marianne Merten Feel like visiting the pyramids without leaving your armchair? Or maybe getting to grips with Heathrow Airport in London before stepping off the plane? Simply enter what looks like a miniature television game show set, sit and let the computers do the rest at the virtual reality laboratory at the Institute of Satellite […]
Chris McGreal reports from Doma, where white farmers are under siege They see it as their Kosovo. The last few dozen white farmers left in a sprawling patch of northern Zimbabwe have fallen back on tactics learned from the Rhodesian bush war three decades ago, but without the guns. From before dawn until after midnight […]
Thebe Mabanga Telecommunication features prominently in any analysis of economic trends and investment issues in determining a country’s rating in the world. Business Map SA consultant Pam Sykes calls telecommunication an enabling sector that facilitates ease of operations in sectors like transport. It is also important as an industrial sector in its own right. Jan […]
KHADIJA MAGARDIE, Johannesburg | Friday THE frenetic pace of activity in Geneva around the finalisation of the draft declaration for the World Conference against Racism is being matched by those working around the clock to touch up the controversial “unofficial agenda”. As organisers limber up for the official conference, various NGOs, individuals and groups have […]
Comment Na’eem Jeenah Apartheid South Africa and Israel caused the main discussions in the previous two world anti-racism conferences 1978 and 1983. South Africa has since been liberated and anti-racism activists around the world are demanding Israel be discussed at the Durban anti-racism conference. Why this clamour from activists, scholars and international civil society? Because […]
Telkom is expanding its network, but costs are slowing demand Jubie Matlou Telephones for hundreds of rural villages and townships spread across the country are ready to ring. About 70000 towers punctuate the country’s landscape, waiting for subscriptions from villagers to connect a telephone line. Labelled the wireless local loop, each tower has a 10km […]
The turmoil in Zimbabwe has been caused by Robert Mugabe’s opportunism analysis Jonathan Steele It may be no accident that the latest outbursts of thuggery in Zimbabwe have flared up in Chinhoyi. The first fatal clashes in the black nationalist uprising after Zanu, Robert Mugabe’s liberation party, turned from civic protest to armed struggle against […]
Will the racism conference be hijacked? comment David Saks It was always predictable, if deplorable, that the forthcoming World Conference Against Racism would be used by certain lobbies as a diplomatic weapon against Israel. Indeed, preparations for the conference have been the occasion for a vast amount of violently anti-Israel rhetoric. It remains to be […]
Johannesburg | Friday THE first steps towards creating a single currency and a single central bank for Africa were taken at a meeting of the association of the continent’s central bank governors, its newly elected chairman said on Thursday. South African Reserve Bank governor and new Association of Central African Bankers (AACB) chairman Tito Mboweni […]
Hestrie Cloete and the men’s 4x100m relay team brought joy but there are still many problems in South African athletics Martin Gillingham Even if you’re one of the sports lovers who thought South Africa’s athletes did well at the world championships in Edmonton, there’s no disputing one fact: they did it in spite, rather than […]
The government and unions are set for battle over the restructuring of telecommunications Jubie Matlou Tough negotiations lie ahead between the government and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) over the listing of Telkom on the securities exchange. Telkom is the first of the public utilities that the government has earmarked for privatisation, […]
BOXING Deon Potgieter For the first time in South Africa, a world title fight will take place behind closed doors. Ahead of his possible match against Philip Ndou in October, Cassius “The Hitman” Baloyi will defend his World Boxing Union featherweight title against Jorge Paredes of Argentina at the Carousel next Wednesday. The bout will […]
Concentration camps were used by the Germans in South West Africa, writes Casper W Erichsen In a recent M-Net documentary, Scorched Earth, an array of historians described how the deplorable and inhumane conditions in concentration camps accounted for the deaths of 27 297 Boers, as well as an estimated 20 000 black casualties. The programme […]
MUNGO SOGGOT, Johannesburg | Friday IN what would be a first in modern times, South Africa is within reach of a budget surplus. Tax collections have far exceeded expectations during the first few months of the fiscal year. At the same time, government expenditure is not keeping up the pace amid ongoing concerns that several […]
Barry Streek All people in the welfare sector will in future be granted three days extra leave on full pay for every Sunday worked and be limited to an average of 15 hours overtime in a week. Welfare workers will be paid an ordinary wage for overtime but by agreement with their employer they will […]
Khadija Magardie The decision last month by a magistrate to acquit 15 white parents on charges of assaulting black pupils in Vryburg, in the North West province, should be used to refocus attention on legislation bringing judicial officers to book for racist judgements. This was one of the issues raised at a public hearing this […]