LIBYAN leader Muammer Gaddafi was on Sunday bestowed the highest honour of the Toro tribe of western Uganda when he attended the sixth anniversary of the coronation of a nine-year-old tribal monarch. Gaddafi, who arrived in Uganda on Saturday, was made Omujwarakondo (defender) of the Toro kingdom during celebrations to mark the sixth anniversary of […]
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 […]
ZIMBABWES tobacco farmers will from next week start to benefit from a 20% foreign currency retention scheme which is expected to allocate them US$80-million from this year’s tobacco crop. Tobacco remains a major foreign currency earner for the cash-strapped government. Now, of the forex that is earned through sales, 20% will be reserved for growers […]
AN Egyptian man went on trial in Cairo on Sunday on charges he had one more than the Muslim legal limit of four wives and that he had entered brief marriages with 29 underage girls. The trial was adjourned until August 18 for Sayed Ragab al-Sawarki, 51, a self-professed devout Muslim who was arrested in […]
SOUTH African IT group Datatec said on Tuesday it had upped its stake in US unit Westcon to 90,2%, to allow for management changes ahead of Westcon’s planned listing in the United States. Datatec said it paid $22-million, funded from internal cash resources, to the original founders of Westcon and some other shareholders for the […]
Algiers | Monday Some 500 knife-wielding religious extremists carried out a “punitive expedition” against suspected prostitutes in central Algeria, slashing about 20 women, while elsewhere in the violence-wracked country a massacre of 11 people was reported on Sunday. The attack on women living alone in poor districts of Hassi Messaoud, a major oil centre some […]
AN Egyptian teenager jumped into the Nile and drowned because his sweetheart turned down his requests for a kiss, police in the conservative Delta town of Banha said on Thursday. High school student Saber Darwish, 17, climbed onto the riverside wall Wednesday night after the second time his young companion Hanaa refused to seal their […]
THE Ethiopian High Court has acquitted 10 men accused of genocide and crimes against humanity under the regime of ousted dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, the news agency ENA reported on Thursday. The men were accused of “torture and extra-judicial killings” while they were serving Mengistu’s Marxist regime. The court also handed out 22 guilty verdicts […]
Harare | Monday A WHITE Zimbabwean farmer ran over and killed a would-be settler and dragged the body for several meters under his van before dumping it at the roadside in the east of the country, police said on Monday. Febian Mapenzauswa, 31, had just arrived at Tara Farm in Odzi near the town of […]
THE Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), protesting over the government’s economic policies, said on Tuesday that the federation was seeking solidarity action from workers’ organisations in neighbouring countries, particularly from South Africa’s powerful trade unions. “We want Cosatu (the South African union federation) to blockade our common borders next time we take industrial action,” […]
Johannesburg | Monday THE chief whip of South Africa’s ruling party on Sunday denied any wrongdoing in a controversial $5,5-billion arms deal, saying he was the victim of an unsubstantiated witchhunt. In a full-page advertisement published in the Sunday Independent, Tony Yengeni said a claim that he received a luxury 4X4 Mercedes Benz in return […]
A TOP US aid official will launch a seven-day mission in Sudan on Sunday to assess efforts to battle famine in parts of the country ravaged by drought and devastated by civil war. Andrew Natsios will travel in northern and southern Sudan and meet government officials and aid workers, the US Agency for International Development […]
THREE former Rwandan officials were arrested in Europe on Thursday on suspicion of crimes committed during the 1994 genocide, said the chief prosecutor of the UN tribunal for Rwanda Carla del Ponte. Emmanuel Rukundo, a former chaplain in the Rwandan army, was arrested in Geneva, while Emmanuel Ndindabahizi, a former finance minister, was arrested in […]
Johannesburg | Sunday SOUTH Africa’s favourite church leader and veteran fighter against apartheid, Desmond Tutu, on Saturday celebrated the 25th anniversary of his consecration as a bishop, with tributes pouring in from around the world. Speaker after speaker at a packed St Mary’s cathedral in downtown Johannesburg paid tribute to Tutu, who turns 70 in […]
A 40-vehicle convoy carrying a dismantled 60-ton oil drilling platform set out from Tunisia on Tuesday on a 400km desert trail to southern Algeria where it will be assembled and put into operation. The caravan was carrying seven main elements of the $55-million platform which will measure nine metres high and eight metres horizontally when […]
SECURITY agents in Nigeria have destroyed more than 2_400 light arms recovered from armed robbers and smugglers, state-run NTA television reported on Thursday. The weapons were destroyed on Tuesday at the premises of the Defence Industry Corporation of Nigeria, based in the northern city of Kaduna, NTA said. -AFP
MALAWIS top prosecutor said on Thursday he has filed charges of treason against three people in connection with an alleged coup attempt in March. “The treason trial against the three should start in the High Court soon,” said Fahad Assani, director of public prosecutions. The accused are 33-year-old Sudi Sulaimana, and two unnamed, low-ranking soldiers. […]
THE Lesotho Queen Karabo Mohato Bereng Seeiso, the wife of the head of state King Letsie III, is expecting her first baby in October, said the Queen Mother, Her Majesty Queen Mamohato Bereng Seeiso. Queen Karabo was married to King Letsie in February last year after which she discontinued her Bachelor of Science studies at […]
FORMER Ivory Coast foreign minister Amara Essy, who was elected the new secretary-general of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), was on Thursday accorded a hero’s welcome upon his return from Lusaka. Thousands of excited crowds ringed the road from Abidjan airport to the administrative quarter of Plateau, where the president’s office is located. They […]
BRITISH Airways (BA) has announced the start of commercial flights between London and Addis Ababa on October 5, Ethiopian private economic weekly Capital reported on Monday. Two flights a week each way will be operated by BA’s independent franchise partner, British Mediterranean Airways. “All flights will operate through Alexandria, Egypt,” the airline said. Planes will […]
MPUMALANGA Premier Ndaweni Mahlangu on Wednesday condemned the ongoing farm attacks in the province. This follows four attacks that were reported in a single day on Monday. One farmer was shot in the stomach, a couple was beaten and a pensioner tied up. The incidents brought to 24 the number of farm attacks reported to […]
A 22-year-old man has been fined 100 kwacha ($1.50) by a lower court for throwing an empty beer bottle toward Malawian President Bakili Muluzi’s convoy last month, court officials said on Thursday. The official said Robson Gilinjala was arrested by Muluzi’s security agents and charged with conduct likely to cause breach of peace. Gilinjala pleaded […]
DEFENCE minister Mosiuoa Lekota will defend a R1,9-million civil claim brought against him by two farm workers allegedly tortured by army commando members, even though he “doesn’t have a leg to stand on.” Defence spokesman Sam Mkhwanazi said on Wednesday that Lekota was unhappy about defending the claim. “Legally speaking he has no leg to […]
A BUSINESSMAN from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has bought one of South Africa’s top vineyards from a descendant of the first French Huguenot settler to plant vines in the Cape region. George de Villiers on Wednesday said he had sold 33 hectares of his Mont Rochelle estate at Franschhoek northeast of Cape Town […]
NAMIBIA will withdraw all its troops from the DRC by the end of August, South African Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Thursday. Lekota, speaking to SABC radio from Windhoek, said Namibian Defence Minister Errki Nghimtina had told him his country’s troops “will be totally out of the DRC by the end of next month”. […]
UGANDAN troops have been deployed in parts of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to end a witchhunt which has seen an estimated 800 people hacked to death, an army representative said on Thursday. Lieutenant-Colonel Phinehas Katirima said Ugandan army units in DRC had arrested over 70 people accused of involvement in the witch-hunt. They […]
REVIEWS Gavin Foster Triumph Bonneville, R59 995 BMW K1200 RS, R107 600 Remember the days when the valve-caps were the only plastic bits on a motorcycle? When only ducktails had tattoos, and the 115mph (183kph) Triumph Bonneville was king of the bonies? Today things are different. The mechanicals of modern superbikes are all enclosed in […]
BODY LANGUAGE Polly Vernon She gazes defiantly from behind the battered perspex of any number of bus shelters. Statuesque, dewy-thighed, leather-booted. Guns and techno-gadgetry strapped to her bare flesh, glossed lips slightly parted, hair damp with the (not unduly pungent, mind) sweat of her recent exertions. She is Lara Croft or, rather, Angelina Jolie pretending […]
Jane Rosenthal The Picador Book of African Stories edited by Stephen Gray (Picador) Unity in Flight (Botsotso) Tenderfoots (M&G Books) ‘Africa is difficult to see because it is gun-shaped and heart-shaped. It takes heart to see her. It takes some cultural and racial overcoming. Actually it takes being a true richly grounded human being to […]
Etrade has a substantial investor education centre. It moves from the basics of investing, how markets work, how to read financial statements, tax basics and advanced investing strategies. (www.etrade.co.za) Tradek offers a fairly comprehensive but less user-friendly guide to investing. (www.tradek.com) etaxes lists upcoming seminars on tax management. But be warned they are all booked […]
After leading the digital music revolution, Napster’s former fans won’t flock back when it relaunches, says Edward Helmore Six months ago anyone with even a casual interest in technology couldn’t avoid Napster. News of the company had moved from the business pages to the front page as the digital music revolution became a cultural phenomenon. […]
whipping boy If the Durban July is to retain its position as South Africa’s premier horseracing event, the organisers will have to take a long, hard look at the flesh on display. It’s not a pleasant job, but someone has to do it. One expert at the July opined bitterly that, with the cigarette makers […]