A PROPOSED new land policy in Malawi stipulates that foreigners who own freehold land in the country have seven years to either become citizens, or forfeit their land to locals. Land minister Thengo Maloya explained that the proposed policy aimed to prevent land wars and instill investor confidence. “Malawians are no longer sleeping. They suffered […]
ZENZELE KUHLASE, White River | Thursday NURSES protesting against the shortage of medicine and equipment at Themba Hospital in Mpumalanga, are contravening regulations, warned health department spokesman Dumisani Mlangeni on Thursday. The nurses have refused to wear uniforms since Tuesday and Mlangeni said that this contravened regulations that do not allow nurses out of uniform […]
LIBYAN leader Muammer Gadaffi announced on Wednesday his intention of creating a fund for the rehabilitation of southern Sudan, which has been torn by an 18-year civil war. During a meeting with Sudanese officials in Khartoum, Gaddafi pledged Libya would be the first contributor to the fund and said he would urge other African countries […]
THE six-month ceasefire in the Democratic Republic of Congo is holding, but the situation in the giant central African nation remains fragile, the UN special envoy to the region said on Wednesday. Kamel Morjane, the Special Representative of Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the DRC said while the situation was a great deal better compared with […]
CHINA is to write off $18,6-million owed by Zanzibar in an effort to help boost the economy of Tanzania’s semi-autonomous off-shore state. The decision was announced during a meeting at State House here between a Chinese delegation and Zanzibar President Amani Karume. Karume said “the writing-off of this debt is a great relief to our […]
THE minister of forestry economy of the Republic of Congo (ROC) Henri Djombo has announced the protection of what scientists are calling “the most pristine rain forest left in Africa,” according to a statement from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Congolaise Industrielle des Bois, a private timber company, announced that it would forfeit its harvesting […]
THIRTY people were crushed to death in a road accident in central Zambia, press reports said on Thursday. The crash took place on Wednesday at Kapiri Mposhi, a rural town about 75km north of the capital, when a bus with 74 passengers collided with a van and plunged into a river. “Twenty-seven people died on […]
NIGERIA?S bicycling transport minister, Ojo Madueke, was run off the road on Wednesday by a speeding bus that crashed into an oncoming car. Madueke, who started last week cycling to weekly cabinet ministers, told reporters at the presidency he had set out for the meeting early Wednesday when the near tragedy occurred. “There was a […]
THE Sudanese government army said on Wednesday it destroyed a Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) camp in southern Sudan’s North Bahr el-Ghazal State, the Suna news agency reported. The army troops “have completely destroyed a camp of the outlaws in north Bahr el-Ghazal and inflicted heavy losses in lives and equipment on them,” Suna quoted […]
NAMIBIA’S Ministry of Foreign Affairs has lodged a complaint with the South African Broadcasting Monitoring and Complaints Unit after a television crew allegedly “tricked” President Sam Nujoma into an interview. Foreign affairs permanent secretary, Mocks Shivute said that Nujoma granted the Special Assignment team an interview after they said they wanted to tell his story […]
RAFAEL BIE, Maputo | Thursday MOZAMBICAN newsrooms are still haunted by fear and self-censorship eight months after the assassination of investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported on Thursday. Speaking after a four-day fact finding tour of Mozambique, CPJ deputy director Joel Simon said he was deeply disappointed at […]
US computer giant Microsoft on Wednesday donated $50-million and 80 computers to Algeria aimed at boosting professional training and computer literacy in the north African country, officials said. Some 200 teachers will be trained under the program, and multimedia centers will be set up. – AFP –>
A DRAFT bill to divide up Nigeria’s inefficient state-run electricity company NEPA ahead of its planned privatisation is ready, officials said on Tuesday. The government last year announced plans to improve the performance of the widely criticised National Electric Power Authority and then break it up and sell it off over the next two years. […]
NIGERIA loses several thousand children to human trafficking a year, the Vanguard newspaper said on Sunday, quoting an International Labour Organisation (ILO) report. The paper quoted the ILO report as saying that in 1996 alone, over 4 000 children were trafficked from the southern and southeast parts of the country. It said the children were […]
THE newly formed opposition Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) has won a parliamentary by-election in Lusaka which was marred by violence. “The FDD candidate won in 32 polling centres out of 34,” said an election officer, describing it as a “landslide victory.” FDD secretary-general Edith Nawakwi said her party’s victory signified a major shift […]
A GRADE 9 pupil from Swakopmund is lucky to be alive after he was stabbed in the neck and chest by a classmate last week. Marshall Maasdorp (14) from Westside High School in Vineta was stabbed with a steak knife after an argument with another pupil. Maasdorp said initially he did not feel the stab […]
AN Mpumalanga farmers’ union has joined the labour department in an intensive drive to enforce labour laws on farms. The Onderberg Farmers Union’s made the commitment following recent labour department raids on 15 farms in the Onderberg region, east of Nelspruit. Farmers were found to be using child labourers, illegal immigrants and forcing workers to […]
SUE THOMAS, Pretoria | Wednesday SOUTH African Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Tuesday the government’s hands were clean in a multi-billion dollar arms deal and he distanced the state from alleged irregularities involving sub-contractors. “There were no irregularities in the documents that crossed my desk,” Lekota told a panel investigating the R43-billion deal involving […]
AT least six people have died of cholera and about 200 others have been admitted to health centres in Dar es Salaam over the last week. “Between 10 and 30 people contract the disease daily,” said Deo Mutasiwa, Dar es Salaam Regional Medical Officer, warning that the water-borne viral disease was spreading at an alarming […]
THE Governor of Angola’s Cunene Province, Pedro Mutindi, has been flown to the Roman Catholic Hospital in Windhoek after sustaining “serious injuries” in a landmine blast near Ondjiva. Hospital sources told The Namibian that Mutindi was flown in on Sunday and is in a “critical condition” in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit. “He has been […]
AT least 70 people were killed and 15 wounded when armed men attacked the north Angolan diamond-mining town of Chinguvu, close to the Congo border, Lusa reported on Monday. Quoting an unnamed military source who identified the attackers as Unita, the news agency said about 100 rebels were involved in the Saturday assault on a […]
AN operation to control an infestation of quelea birds in southern Ethiopia has been launched by the Ministry of Agriculture. With a spray aircraft and support team provided by the Desert Locust Control Organisation (DLCO) and pesticide donated by the government of Japan, control operations in Konso and Derashie have so far destroyed 5,1-million birds. […]
AT least 13 people including two children were killed and more than 30 wounded on Monday in heavy fighting in Mogadishu, witnesses said. More than 40 people have been killed since Thursday in almost daily battles between a shifting array of warlords and businessmen backed by heavily armed militiamen. Witnesses said Monday’s conflict, now in […]
THE government of Zimbabwe, where food shortages are looming, has granted a monopoly to allow a grain marketing parastatal to buy maize and wheat — the two main staple crops — from farmers. The Grain Marketing Board (GMB) becomes the sole and official buyer of grains from all farmers across the country, while millers will […]
THE United States has approved $10-million in financial assistance to help the Nigerian air force to develop its fleet, officials said on Tuesday. The military package, approved for fiscal 2001, is to purchase spare parts for the Nigerian air force’s grounded C-130 planes, the US Information Service (USIS) said. It said the money would also […]
A GROWING number of Swaziland schools are introducing compulsory pregnancy tests at the start of the year so that parents can hold their daughters back. The idea is that parents not waste money on school fees, uniforms and textbooks, only to have their daughters drop out later on. The kingdom’s Ministry of Education does not […]
THE Sudanese government has said it doubts foreign oil companies, notably the Canadian company Talisman, will pull-out from the Sudan under the threat of sanctions from the United States, Sudan’s foreign minister was quoted saying to local newspapers on Tuesday. “Numerous signals we have received confirmed that all oil companies, including Talisman, will continue operating […]
A South African High Court has ordered a man to pay his wife a million rand ($121 000) in damages for infecting her with HIV, it was reported on Sunday. The court ruling is the first in South Africa in which a married woman has claimed damages after her husband wilfully infected her with the […]
MPUMALANGA Health MEC Sibongile Manana has ordered a full investigation into the province’s second largest hospital following the crippling of at least three children during botched operations. Outraged parents have accused Themba Hospital near White River of attempting to cover-up negligence and malpractice by both doctors and nurses during routine operations in 1996. Manana said […]
Violence flared in a Zambian parliamentary by-election involving the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) and the opposition, police representative Lemmy Kajoba said on Sunday. The clashes began late Friday night and continued Saturday, during campaign meetings for the by-election to be held on Tuesday in a densely populated constituency in the capital Lusaka. “Several […]
THE Rwandan army has captured the commander of the extremist rebel Hutus in northwest Rwanda. “Colonel Bemera surrendered peacefully with five of his men while he was encircled by our forces at Mukingo,” said army representative, Jean-Bosco Kazura. Since May 20, fighters from the Interahamwe, an extremist Hutu militia who carried out the 1994 genocide […]
Harare | Tuesday A WHITE Zimbabwean farmer has been arrested in connection with the death of a black man who received land on the farmer’s property under a controversial government resettlement scheme, police said on Monday. Philip Bezuidenhout allegedly ran over Phibian Mapenzauswa on Saturday and dragged him under his truck for 20 metres at […]