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 […]
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 […]
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
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 […]
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 […]
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 mine affected by the NUM threat to down tools says it will sink if the union carries out its plans David McKay Durban Roodepoort Deep (DRD) chief executive Mark Wellesley-Wood says he would be forced to hand the company over to liquidators if the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) makes good on threats to […]
Paul Kirk A senior Durban municipal officer allegedly used a fake driver’s licence to obtain an official luxury car, traffic officials confirmed this week. The acting chief executive of the south operating entity of the Durban Unicity Council, Sandile Thusi, is also alleged to have channelled hundreds of thousands of rands worth of council contracts […]
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 […]
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 […]
A routine dig ahead of roadworks at the KwaZulu-Natal park has led to the discovery of two prehistoric skeletons Niki Moore It’s the perennial conflict between progress and preservation: the construction of a road network in the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park can potentially do enormous damage to valuable and sensitive archaeological sites. But if […]
Neal Collins Philemon “Chippa” Masinga a man many feel could have gone on to be a force alongside compatriot Lucas Radebe at Leeds will return to English football this winter. But not at the top level. Masinga has left Bari, where he enjoyed a successful five seasons, for relegated Coventry City in the first division. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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) […]
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 […]
SuSE, the German Linux distributor, has announced it is readying to release Zulu and Xhosa versions of its distribution. The two new languages will be included as options in version 7,2 of its distribution. The project is a collaborative effort between SuSE and local consulting firm Saffral Consulting. “We are doing the translations locally and […]
PROMINENT Zambian politician and former cabinet minister Derrick Chitala was attacked and beaten about the head during a raid by 15 gunmen on his Lusaka home, police said on Saturday. Chitala survived the attack but suffered head injuries. The armed men stormed Chitala’s house in the upmarket suburb of Ibex Hill early on Friday morning. […]
THE German government is willing to assist the country with money to solve the thorny issue of land reform and resettlement on condition that the money is used to train and equip farmers. The Germans have ruled out the possibility of contributing money to a special land fund. Dr Helga Countess Strachwitz, the German Commissioner […]