Staff Reporter

AN Angolan government HIV/Aids awareness campaign in Angola is drawing criticism from women’s rights activists, church leaders and politicians who say its message is too blunt, Channel Africa reported on Tuesday. The campaign includes TV spots featuring sex scenes and interviews of young women who are asked if they have ever used a condom. “This […]

THE South African government is to play an active role in efforts to end the war in Sudan, Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma announced on Thursday after meeting in Pretoria with her Sudanese counterpart, Mustafa Osman Ismail. “South Africa is very keen to see Sudan get to normality” after 18 years of war between rebels in […]

Suzan Chala Vereeniging residents are facing possible health hazards, including cholera, owing to the spillage of raw sewage material into rivers in the area. Sewage pumps in the town have been breaking from time to time over the past three years, spilling raw sewage into the Suikerbos, Klip and Vaal rivers. The rivers serve as […]

Suzan Chala The Johannesburg Maintenance Court is always crowded with women claiming child support from the fathers of their children. However, it would be incorrect to assume that the men sitting on the benches and crowding the narrow passages are all defendants. There is an increasing number of single men claiming maintenance from women. These […]

THE president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila, has revealed his passion for Congolese rumba music, but he says he has no time to listen to it because of his heavy workload. “My private life is non-existent, or nearly so. My work and my office are all I have. I begin my day […]

The ANC’s alliance partners want to draw up a new economic strategy Jaspreet Kindra The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has asked the South African Communist Party to develop a viable alternative to the government’s economic strategies. This, the union federation argues, would prevent the handing over of the African National Congress to […]

Glenda Daniels and David Macfarlane About 40 magistrates are implicated in a R37-million fraud probe involving luxury renovations to their offices and residences in the name of official repairs. The magistrates are under investigation following the arrest last week of two building contractors on charges of defrauding the departments of public works and justice of […]

AN Mpumalanga farm manager died in hospital early Tuesday morning after he was shot in an ambush at his house on Monday. Manager of the Misty Hill tree plantation in Waterval Boven, Ronald Laaper, (41) was shot in the hip when he arrived home at about 5.30pm, said Highveld police representative Inspector Jacky Nkoana. He […]

Vivienne Gray A new initiative to improve the literacy levels and impart computer skills to police officers is under way in KwaZulu-Natal as a pilot project carried out under the auspices of “business against crime”. The project is sponsored by Rotary, and conducted by Media Works’s adult basic education and training (Abet) programme. Three police […]

A PRIDE of about 60 marauding lions have “gobbled down” more than 100 cows, goats, sheep, donkeys and horses in a rampage in southern Ethiopia, the state news agency reported on Tuesday. “A pride of lions that emerged from a forest in Chena woreda (district) … gobbled down 101 domestic animals” on Saturday, a police […]

crossfire Oupa Bodibe Union investment companies have become the Achilles heel of the South African trade union movement, attracting claims that unions have moved away from their original purpose of representing workers and abandoning their socialist principles for an uncritical embrace of the market. Dale McKinley’s article (“Unions on the capitalist bandwagon”, June 22) falls […]

POLICE in Kenya have shot dead seven suspected gangsters after disarming them and while they were lying face down on the side of a busy road near the capital, press reports said on Thursday, quoting eyewitnesses. Witnesses cited by the newspapers said the seven were on a bus heading out of Nairobi that was pulled […]

Belinda Anderson M-Cell subsidiary MTN’s R3,681-billion syndicated loan will be used to pay off its initial investment in Nigeria and to give it a kick-start to the initial phases of the project. M-Cell director Paul Edwards says the ability to raise the funds is a vote of confidence in a difficult period for telecommunications. MTN […]

THE Nigerian subsidiary of Italian oil group ENI on Tuesday signed an agreement with the government to build a 450-megawatt power plant in southern Nigeria, an official statement said. The gas-fired plant, to be built in Kwale in Delta State and expected to cost around $350-million to build, would be expected to come on stream […]

Belinda Anderson South Africa’s newest media mogul believes the media landscape, once consolidated, will consist of two or three major players an independent group, an Afrikaans group and an empowerment grouping. Recently appointed Nail CEO Saki Macozoma ended speculation that he might facilitate a large financial services merger between Standard Bank, Metropolitan and Liberty. aloeCap […]

ABOUT 200 angry South African shack dwellers on Wednesday occupied a piece of land in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha township, emulating a large-scale land invasion outside Johannesburg earlier this month. Police said the squatters moved on to the private land during the afternoon and demanded the government build them houses. The land invaders measured out plots, […]

The heralded tour by the Bolshoi Ballet presents classical high points, but no real luminaries Ballet Andrew Gilder I could not help wondering, on the way to watch a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet, whether the troupe visiting South Africa was the same as that which performed for the recent meeting of the International Olympic […]

THE west African country of Burkina Faso hopes to launch a “green revolution” through a new company that will try to augment agricultural production and improve food security. Burkina Agriculture Minister Salif Diallo said the new entity Soprofa, a joint venture between the government and Swiss group Aiglon, “would greatly contribute in eradicating rural poverty […]

First he cheated death in a horrific crash. Then he lost his beloved airline. Now Niki Lauda is back in the sport which made him a legend. And, as Adam Sweeting reports, he’s not just along for the ride Part of the allure of Formula One (F1) motor racing is the way its history has […]

A TEENAGE boy with a cricket bat chased away five gunmen attacking his father at their Pretoria home on Wednesday, The Star newspaper reported on Thursday. “The 16-year-old boy hit five gunmen for a six,” the newspaper said. Police representative Inspector Percy Morokane said the intruders forced open burglar bars at around 2:00am on Wednesday, […]

Alan Henry About 10 minutes before the end of qualifying for the recent French Grand Prix, Ralf Schumacher received an informal, yet significant, endorsement of his growing status as a potential grand prix champion. Willi Weber, the sleekly dressed millionaire businessman from Stuttgart who has managed and masterminded the careers of both Schumacher brothers since […]

A FIRE on Tuesday destroyed a wing at the five-star Elephant Hills Inter-Continental Hotel in Zimbabwe’s northwestern resort town of Victoria Falls, police and tourism officials said. The fire damaged part of the hotel casino and destroyed the left wing of the 276-room hotel. No casualties have been reported. State television reported that the fire […]

Alan Henry on the struggle facing the sport’s famous old tracks to keep up to scratch The organisers of last month’s European Grand Prix have denied that their race’s place on the Formula One (F1) calendar is under threat from the projected introduction of a Moscow grand prix. The Nrburgring authorities, who announced significant modifications […]

MPUMALANGA health MEC Sibongile Manana has appointed a four-member task team to monitor and “beef up” management at the notorious Themba Hospital near White River. Themba has been dubbed the “hospital of hell” after three children were left brain damaged during botched procedures in 1996. – African Eye News Service

BENIN does not have enough money to hold local elections because most of the budget was blown during the presidential election in March, the winner of that election, President Mathieu Kerekou, said on Monday. “Of the nine billion CFA francs ($12,3-million) set aside for the presidential and municipal elections, we only have 500-million CFA francs […]

Why does the field of women’s sexual health lag 30 years behind that of men? Why haven’t women received the same attention? To understand the present we have to consider the past. Little is known about sexual behaviour in ancient times, but from the time of earliest recorded history, about 3 000BC, women were considered […]

ABOUT 300 medical doctors and 7 500 nurses at Zimbabwe’s government hospitals went on an indefinite strike on Tuesday over pay grievances. “We are on strike since yesterday. We are demanding a review of our salaries because we feel doctors are grossly underpaid,” said Sibert Mandega, president of the Hospital Doctors Association. Specialist doctors meanwhile […]

A NIGERIAN lawmaker has called for the arrest over corruption claims of former military ruler General Abdulsalami Abubakar, a press report said on Wednesday. Senator Kanti Bello from the northern state of Katsina said Abubakar, who ran Nigeria for 11 months before handing over power to the civilian government of President Olusegun Obasanjo in May […]

Khadija Magardie On Thursday afternoon trade unions and electricity giant Eskom were still locked in negotiations as the electricity strike entered its third day. This was despite a court victory for the unions on Wednesday: the Johannesburg Labour Court forced Eskom to withdraw its unilateral implementation of a wage increase of 7%. The court ruled […]