Bongani Majola Vista University’s core functions seem to have been stretched to breaking point by the exodus of staff who took voluntary severance packages last week. On its East Rand campus the morale of the remaining staff is at an all-time low after the campus principal also left at the beginning of the month. Two […]
Susan Chala Letty Motshwene (52) of Motsephiri in the Northern Province has come a long way from abject poverty to tending a vegetable garden in a school-yard. It took a few months to harvest and take the fresh produce home as a form of food security. Motshwene was not alone there were 30 women in […]
right to reply Pregs Govender The Mail & Guardian, in its article on the gender summit (“Gender activists slam government”, August 10), incorrectly reported that “funding was withdrawn from a parliamentary committee on women”. This was a factual inaccuracy that detracted from the crucial fact that it is gender budgeting that has been removed from […]
Jaspreet Kindra Former African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) leader James Nkambule has quit the party. Nkambule, who is facing charges of defrauding the state, was assisting Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete to unearth a plot to unseat President Thabo Mbeki. He says that while he feels “used” and “betrayed”, he will continue […]
Barry Streek Cape Town’s valuable collection of orchestral scores and instruments, which was under threat of being sold to settle the liquidation debts of the city’s defunct philharmonic orchestra, has been saved and will be placed under the control of a board of trustees. The recently formed Cape Philharmonic Orchestra made an offer to the […]
Marianne Merten 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 buster advocate Willem Heath and the […]
In Europe, they call it ethnic cleansing; according to Zimbabwe government apologists, it is settlement of the land question. Whichever view we take on the situation in Zimbabwe, there are facts in common to each. People are being chased off land to which they have legal title because of the colour of their skin. Those […]
Unicef chief Carol Bellamy said on Wednesday that rebel groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo had agreed to work with her organisation towards the demobilisation of child soldiers and to stop recruiting children. “The rebel forces too, want to work with us in the program to integrate these children back to their normal […]
Johannesburg | Thursday THE strike in the automobile manufacturers industry was set to enter its tenth day on Thursday as late night negotiations between employers and Numsa reached a dead end on Wednesday. Automobile Manufacturers Employers Organisation (Ameo) representative Dave Kirby said that there were still two key areas which the parties could not agree […]
THE Botswana government will cut services to members of the nomadic Basarwa tribe living in the southern African country’s largest game reserve because it has become too expensive to maintain them, a minister said on Wednesday. Assistant Local Government Minister Gladys Kokorwe said services to the nomads, living in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, would […]
THE prime minister of Mozambique on Monday vowed that the suspected murder of a top banker at the weekend would not sway the government from re-privatising the country’s commercial banks. “The privatisation will go ahead as planned in line with our government’s policy,” Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi told state radio. The body of Antonio Siba […]
AFRICAN heads of state agreed on Tuesday to liquidate troubled Air Afrique and form a new regional airline with Air France as the majority shareholder – but with the original name and logo. The decision, based on a proposal from shareholder Air France, was announced in a statement after a last ditch meeting of the […]
Vatican City | Wednesday A ZAMBIAN archbishop whose marriage scandalized the Vatican is giving up his wife and returning to the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican said on Tuesday. It said Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo was also breaking his relationship with the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. He was married in a mass Moon ceremony on May […]
Maseru | Monday THE Amalgamated Banks of South Africa has begun assessing the financial situation of Mozambique’s Banco Austral, ahead of the troubled bank’s reprivatization and only days after its chairman was apparently murdered. Police have indicated that Antonio Siba Siba Macuacua was on Saturday apparently pushed down the steps from the 15th floor of […]
AFFIRMATIVE action and the law on employment equity has had virtually no effect in South Africa, with white men still filling nine out of ten positions in top local companies, according to a report published on Tuesday. The report by auditers Deloitte and Touche, printed in the Johannesburg-based Business Day newspaper, said white men still […]
DUMISANE LUBISI, Bushbuckridge | Thursday AN 11-YEAR-old boy became yet another victim of a botched circumcision in the Northern Province when he died just hours after being admitted to hospital on Sunday. Sipho Mathe of Cork Trust village in Bushbuckridge was admitted to Mapulaneng Hospital on Sunday afternoon after being circumcised at an initiation school […]
London, Harare | Thursday BRITISH and European diplomats in Zimbabwe have held secret talks on the possible evacuation of up to 25 000 British citizens from the country, The Independent newspaper reported on Thursday. Amid widespread violent looting of white-owned farms, the talks were held to update a contingency plan to help British nationals and […]
AT least two civilians were wounded and several thousands forced to flee their homes in Nyambuye — a hilly area to the east of the capital — following renewed clashes Wednesday between the Burundese army and the rebels of the Hutu-controlled National Liberation Front (FNL). The heavy fighting was concentrated in the Kibingo, Kinuke and […]
EAST African cellular operator Mobitel has been accused of running an illegal cellphone network by the Tanzanian Minister of Communications and Transport, Ernest Nyanda, Wired News reported on Wednesday. Mobitel has been running its network in the country for seven years. The minister said in parliament that Mobitel has been running its network without a […]
THE South African governments immediate concern is to quell the fears of the minority community, said Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad on Wednesday, in reaction to the incidents of farm attacks by war veterans in neighbouring Zimbabwe. We have to reassure our people in South Africa that a similar situation will not arise […]
A GOVERNMENT appointed panel has found that more than 2 000 projects awarded between 1976 and 1998 are yet to be completed in Nigeria, the Guardian newspaper reported on Tuesday. The commission was set up by President Olusegun Obasanjo, who came to power in May 1999, to verify and assess the extent of work done […]
A CHILD was killed in Lagos and a policeman seriously injured on Wednesday after an attempt to make an arrest in the city’s main market spiralled out of control. Traders said the market in the Democratic Republic of Congo capital was shut down on Wednesday afternoon after efforts by police to catch a child-thief degenerated […]
POLICE in Osun State, southwest Nigeria, have interrogated a commissioner over an alleged attempt to poison the state deputy governor. Osun State Deputy Governor Iyiola Omisore claimed last week that Governor Adebisi Akande and senior aides had conspired to kill him by arranging for someone to poison his food. For more than a year, relations […]
South African Environmental Affairs Minister Valli Moosa will on Friday sign a memorandum of understanding in Windhoek with his Namibian counterpart Philemon Malima to set up a cross-border conservation area. The department said in a statement the environmental collaboration programme would establish the Richtersveld/Ai-Ais Transfrontier Park, a protected conservation area. The area was part of […]
More than 40 Northern Province farmers have offered to sell 16 852 hectares of land to the provincial department of land affairs as part of a project to transfer 30% of agricultural land to blacks within 15 years. Provincial land affairs representative Phumudzo Makharemedza said on Wednesday that 43 farmers had responded to government advertisements […]
Durban | Tuesday SUSPECTED treasure hunters have desecrated a mass grave of British soldiers who fought in the Anglo-Boer War, the organisation which looks after the graves reported on Monday. THE desecration of the grave of eight privates of the 27th Iniskillen Regiment at Hart’s Hill outside Ladysmith, 236 kilometres northwest of Durban, occurred at […]
THE Algerian oil company Sonatrach and British Petroleum this weekend signed three contracts worth $2,5-billion (2.8 billion euros) for the development of gas reserves in the Algerian desert. When complete, the project is expected to yield nine billion cubic metres of natural gas per year. One contract is for a gas processing plant, pumping networks […]
AN eight-year-old Nigerian girl, held by US immigration authorities for a year after entering the country illegally, has been handed over to relatives. The girl, who was abandoned by her parents in New York and taken to an immigration centre, has been handed over to her cousin, who lives in Connecticut, according to Immigration and […]
Lisbon | Tuesday ANGOLAN rebels from the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) said on Monday they were responsible for a deadly ambush last week of a passenger train east of Luanda that killed more than 150 people. A Unita statement released in Portugal, Angola’s former colonial power, said at least 152 people […]
THE United Nations has condemned Britain for its policy of jailing asylum seekers while they wait to hear if their claims are successful. The acting head of the UN’s refugee agency in London says it is unacceptable for asylum seekers to be detained on arrival in Britain in prisons alongside criminals. Many are confined to […]
MORE than 3 000 Pakistani blue helmets have arrived in Sierra Leone and a further 1 300 are expected by the end of the month, a Pakistani military official said on UN radio on Monday. The official said the troops who had already arrived included an artillery regiment, engineers and logistics units as well as […]
A GIANT ancient Egyptian statue abandoned for 15 years in the grounds of a Cairo hospital has finally been given a home in a museum, Egypt’s antiquities chief said on Monday. The statue was moved to the Arab Contractors hospital for unknown reasons from a quarry in the Red Mountain region east of Cairo, said […]