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 […]
AUSTRIA has sold 20 tanks to Botswana, Pretoria-based Austrian diplomat Caroline Gudenus said on Wednesday. “There was a deal for 20 new tanks, plus an option for 20 second-hand ones. The new ones have been supplied, but the sale of the second hand ones was not permitted to go through,” Gudenus told the Sapa news […]
EIGHTEEN Northern Province health officials were arrested during predawn raids on their houses on Monday in connection with stealing medicine, linen and other supplies from Jane Furse Hospital. This brings to 65 the number of officials arrested across the province this year. Police recovered stolen medicine, linen and cutlery at the homes of the Jane […]
The government should leave the media to get on with their job NO blows BARRED Sipho Seepe There is general agreement that in a democracy, especially in the context of transition, people should become agents of change. This participation lends legitimacy to both the processes of transformation and to government policies and practices. In this […]
THOMAS DEVE, Harare | Thursday A DEADLY computer virus has run amok in Zimbabwe, hitting possibly hundreds of unsuspecting e-mail subscribers. One of the worst hit companies is The Daily News. The newspapers main e-mail address was yesterday bombarded with hundreds of messages carrying a computer virus that steals documents from a users files or […]
Harare | Thursday ZIMBABWE has suspended accreditation of BBC journalists seeking to cover events in the country, accusing them of unethical and unprofessional conduct, the state-run Herald newspaper reported on Thursday. The daily quoted a letter from Information Minister Jonathan Moyo to the BBC’s bureau chief in neighbouring South Africa saying that the measure was […]
THE death of the secretary-general of Sierra Leone’s rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), Solomon Rogers, in jail has been received “badly” by members, the chairman of the RUF’s peace council Omrie Golley said on Monday. “His death was received by all in the RUF pretty badly. At this point in time there are a lot […]
FACED with a crisis situation in which grief-stricken mourners were being asked to dig graves for their dead relatives because of a strike by grave-diggers, the Harare City Council yesterday engaged casual workers. The council also enlisted 18 members of the municipal police to assist the casual workers to dig graves at Granville Cemetery in […]
Lagos | Tuesday NIGERIAS national Tae Kwan Do coach Yusuf Yahaya took ill on a South African flight and died after he was refused hospitalisation in Johannesburg because he lacked an entry visa for South Africa, officials said on Monday. Yahaya was returning to Nigeria with the national Tae Kwan Do team aboard a South […]
SUDAN had the second-largest number of refugees in Africa, after Burundi, at the start of 2001, and attempts to find solutions to this and other problems had borne limited fruit, the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) reported on Tuesday. The civil war in Sudan had shown few signs of abating and continued to […]
THE South African Broadcasting Corporation has refused to apologise to the Namibian Government and President Sam Nujoma for having allegedly “tricked” him into an interview. Special Assignment Editing Manager Chris Marguord told The Star newspaper in South Africa that the SABC had consulted its lawyers and would not apologise. Marguord said it was disturbing to […]
Johannesburg | Tuesday THOUSANDS of employees working for South African power company Eskom will down tools on Tuesday when three unions embark on a national strike following a wage dispute with the electricity supplier. Over 20 000 members of the MWU-Solidarity, the National Union of Mineworkers and the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) […]
PHILIPPE BERNES-LASSERRE, Johannesburg | Tuesday SOUTH Africa’s leaders are delighted that Africa captured the attention of the powerful G8 nations at their summit in Genoa, Italy, but analysts said Monday they were waiting for results. Bheki Khumalo, representative for President Thabo Mbeki, echoed the declaration by Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi that the summit marked […]
SAKHILE MOKOENA, Hazyview | Tuesday IN a sweltering shed in the sub-tropical hills of Mpumalanga’s Lowveld, a farmer called Daan Jacobs and 12 workers sweat over avocados. They are turning the creamy fruit into an oil that is used in beauty products for women in the United States and Japan. “Our products are in high […]
HOT on the heels of orchestrating a watered-down resolution on Zimbabwe at last week’s final OAU summit, South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Thursday he agreed with concerns that unrest in Zimbabwe had the potential to provoke unrest elsewhere in southern Africa if it were not brought under control. Speaking during a two-day visit […]
PRESIDENT Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia announced on Sunday the lifting of a decree preventing some politicians from standing for election, news organizations reported. “Former politicians are now free to come back and form parties. The decree that made people seek political asylum abroad is now history,” PANA reported Jammeh as saying at a ceremony […]
Mbabane | Tuesday THE United States has warned Swaziland that it stands to lose world markets and membership in world bodies should the country fail to revoke a controversial decree, it was reported on Monday. In a letter to the Swaziland government, a senior US official voiced serious concerns about the decree, which gives King […]
SOUTH African platinum stocks are seen coming under renewed selling pressure on Thursday because of more weakness in the price of the white metal, putting downward pressure on the overall market, traders said. The market has been pushed lower this week by steep reverses in platinum counters as investors watched platinum and palladium prices touching […]
NIGERIA’S second largest port, in the southern oil city of Port Harcourt, is in danger of collapsing because of corrosion of underwater structures, officials stated on Thursday. The port in Port Harcourt was built some 88 years ago and many of its structures are now crumbling, officials said, confirming reports in the Nigerian press. On […]
IRIN Copenhagen | Monday A DANISH company, the DLH Group, has decided to stop importing Liberian timber in reaction to a public call by three non-governmental organisations that it stop dealing with Liberian logging companies implicated in arms trafficking. DLH imported logs from the Liberia-based Oriental Timber Company and Royal Timber Corporation into Europe. Greenpeace, […]
THE 35-thousand entrants in the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour earlier this year spent R66-million in Cape Town, according to a impact study carried out by the Cycle Tour and the City of Cape Town Council. If travel to and from the city is included, the direct economic benefit of the Tour is […]
Cape Town SOUTH African millionaire Mark Shuttleworth has confirmed that he is undergoing training in Russia to become the next paying space tourist, it was reported on Friday. The Cape Times newspaper quoted Shuttleworth as saying he began “intense” training at the Star City astronautical centre outside Moscow on Tuesday to in a bid to […]
Maputo | Saturday TWO Mozambican policemen were Friday sentenced to 17 and 18 years each in jail over last year’s death of 83 detainees from suffocation at a police holding cell in Mozambique’s northern town of Montepuez, state media reported Saturday. The officer on duty on the night of the deaths, Tereciano Mithale, was sentenced […]
AN Egyptian woman (19) threw herself from the fourth floor of a Cairo building rather than face scandal arising from her being discovered in her boyfriend’s apartment, the daily al-Ahram said Thursday. The young girl was with her 22-year-old boyfriend, a student and computer salesman, in his house in the main Sunni Muslim neighbourhood of […]