DAVID LE PAGE Johannesburg | Tuesday THE ongoing strike in the car manufacture industry could lead to Daimler-Chrysler permanently losing a major contract for the annual production of 30_000 C-class Mercedes-Benz vehicles for the European market, the company warned its workers on Monday. The strike by 20_000 car manufacturing workers is now in its second […]
SIX Central American countries have announced they are negotiating with international drugs companies to buy cheaper Aids treatments. The countries have already had individual offers of big discounts – up to 85% in some cases – but want to drive the price down further by buying in bulk. Many of the region’s health services are […]
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 […]
LUNGA MASUKU, Mbabane | Tuesday A SWAZILAND crime syndicate allegedly involving government officials is selling HIV negative certificates for R300 in the tiny kingdom’s central region. Director of medical services in Swaziland Dr John Mbambo said he had asked police to investigate the matter. “This is defeating our efforts as we try to bring the […]
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 […]
SEVENTEEN people have been killed by an armed group manning a roadblock in Algeria, locals in the Relizane region where the attack took place said on Monday. The victims, all farmworkers, were travelling on small trucks when they drove into the ambush overnight on Sunday close to the town of Sidi M’hamed Benaouda, some 300 […]
A SOLDIER, his wife and child were found gassed in the family car in their garage in Nelspruit on Monday. The family was found when the soldier’s colleagues from the army’s general support base in Nelspruit went to the house to investigate why the soldier had not reported for duty. Police said the 42-year-old staff […]
THE South African government plans to tighten a law against land invasions to stop a growing tendency by the homeless to occupy state and private land. Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele said the amendment would be aimed specifically at people who organise land invasions, saying the courts had been too lenient on them. She said the […]
AN Islamic court in northern Nigeria has sentenced a woman to 100 lashes for having sex with a man to whom she was not married, The Comet newspaper reported on Sunday. It said 20-year-old Amina Abdullahi was convicted on Friday by the Sharia court in Gusau, capital of Zamfara state, after confessing to sleeping with […]
A LEADING Mozambican banker was found dead outside his office in the capital Maputo in a suspected murder case, police said on Sunday. The body of Antonio Siba Siba, chairman of Mozambique’s largest commercial bank Banco Austral, was found late on Saturday after apparently after falling six floors. He either fell or was pushed, police […]
ZENZELE KUHLASE, Nelspruit | Monday THE only thing that protects a traumatised eight-year-old Mpumalanga girl from the man who apparently raped and brutalised her, is her mother’s wicked looking panga. The child was raped so violently that she can no longer control her bladder or bowl movements, and is terrified of all men – including […]
SUSAN NJANJI, Harare | Monday ZIMBABWE’S white farmers on Sunday called for swift action to halt mounting lawlessness in the countryside, accusing ‘marauding bands’ of wreaking havoc following clashes between white farmers and resettled blacks. Farming officials said looting and vandalism of property were ongoing in the troubled Doma farming region near Chinhoyi, 100 kilometers […]
Johannesburg | Monday HUMAN trials on a new Aids vaccine will start simultaneously in the United States and in South Africa’s eastern port city of Durban in March 2002, it was reported on Sunday. The Sunday Independent reported that scientists were selecting 48 HIV-negative volunteers to take part in the phase one trials at Durban’s […]
A MOTHER and her three children were shot and killed by Islamic extremists at the weekend as they slept in their isolated country home in western Algeria, locals said on Sunday. Earlier, local media reported that five members of another family were killed and three others injured in an attack by armed militants in the […]
SHARES in Dimension Data dived 7,7% early on Friday in Johannesburg, in a catch-up from Thursday’s 12% losses in London, when the South African bourse was closed for a holiday. Didata shed more than a rand in early trade to a fresh four-year trough of R12,50, but by 0839 GMT gains in European tech stocks […]
THIRTY-three people were killed and several others wounded in a weekend bus crash in eastern Zambia, police said on Monday. Police said the bus travelling from Malawi overturned and rolled into a gully on Saturday night. The driver survived the smash and is being questioned by police. – AFP
Johannesburg | Monday A STRIKE that brought South Africa’s car manufacturing industry to a near standstill last week would continue on Monday along with strikes in the metal and aluminium industries, a trade union representative said on Sunday. Dumisa Ntuli from the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) said the union was organising […]
A MILITARY triumvirate in charge of the breakaway Comoran island of Anjouan following a coup said on Friday it is committed to a process aimed at reuniting the Indian Ocean archipelago into a new entity. A statement identified the members of a three-man “politico-military transition commission” which took power on Thursday as gendarmerie chief major […]
ZIMBABWE will late this month introduce a Z$500 banknote (worth about $9) due to rising inflation which has eroded the value of the currency, the central bank chief said on Friday. The largest denomination note available so far had been a Z$100 note, which was introduced in 1995. “In view of rising inflation, the Z$500 […]
GILBERTO NETO, Luanda | Monday THE death toll from an attack on a passenger train in Angola has risen to close to 100, state-run radio reported on Sunday. Radio Nacional, quoting government and military sources, said the Friday attack 150km southeast of Luanda had also injured around 120 people. The train hit a landmine laid […]
A 70-YEAR-old man Tanzanian man has been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of cultivating and selling cannabis, a government official said on Sunday. Mareremba Machafu of the northern Kagera region began his term in jail on Friday following his conviction and failure to raise a one million shilling ($1 220) fine, […]
PRO-DEMOCRACY groups in Swaziland on Saturday rejected a commission’s conclusion that the country’s citizens were in favour of extending the already sweeping powers of King Mswati III. Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) secretary general Jan Sithole said a report by the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) — which spent four years canvassing people on changes […]
BUSINESSMAN Delma Lupepe, has undertaken to spruce up the neglected Bulawayo provincial heroes’ acre at a cost of $3,6-million following repeated complaints by families whose relatives are buried there, over its dilapidated state. Construction work is said to be underway. During Saturday’s commemoration of Heroes’ Day, Lupepe hired four tents, a public address system, security […]
JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Monday THE Land Bank will auction disgraced former South African ambassador Mangisi Zitha’s palatial home and farm on Friday after the flamboyant politician failed to honour loans with the bank. The humiliating public auction comes just weeks after Zitha was arrested in a police sting operation at Sun City for allegedly […]
A SISTER-in-law of Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd, who is frequently in legal trouble in Egypt, was acquitted of charges she spent the salaries of around 50 of her employees, legal sources said on Sunday. A Cairo misdemeanours court found Princess Hind al-Fassi and her nephew Mohammed al-Fassi innocent on Saturday because the plaintiffs had no […]
Commonwealth talks hosted by Nigeria, aimed at pulling Zimbabwe out of international isolation over its violence-wracked land reforms, have been delayed to the first week of September, Zimbabwean state television said on Friday. Nigerian and Zimbabwean officials had announced that the Commonwealth group would be meeting in Nigeria August 15-17 to seek ways to heal […]
DAVID LE PAGE, Johannesburg | Sunday ACCORDING to Independent Online, Willem Heath has wound up a week of hearings into the Cape Town street renaming scandal, in which council members are alleged to have manipulated so-called public petitions in support of the proposal. The proposal was a favourite of Democratic Alliance mayor Pieter Marais, who […]