HARARE | Wednesday TELEVISION authorities in Zimbabwe have banned a new live weekly talk show that was highly critical of President Robert Mugabe’s policies and actions, the local media reported on Wednesday. The discussion programme “Talk to the Nation”, sponsored by pro-government civic organisation the National Development Assembly (NDA), flighted just three times before it […]
ZIMBABWE’S Tourism Authority (ZTA) is offering free “educationals” to international tour operators in an attempt to revive the country’s devastated tourism sector. ZTA regional manager Zii Masiye said on Tuesday tour operators, travel agents and travel journalists from United Kingdom, South Africa and France have already been hosted on educational trips to resorts and game […]
THE United Nations said it has slapped travel restrictions on Liberian President Charles Taylor and several of his top advisors and family members. A list of 150 people banned from travelling was published on Tuesday by the Sanctions Committee in accordance with Resolution 1343, which came into effect on May 7 and aims to cut […]
LESOTHO Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili fired three ministers on Thursday ahead of elections due in the first quarter of next year and demoted Deputy Prime Minister Kelebone Maope, moving him from the finance ministry to law, justice and human rights. Out are Law, Justice and Human Rights Minister Shakhane Mokhehle; Health Minister Tefo Mabote and […]
BUSINESSES in Malawi are giving customers sweets instead of small change because they say there is a shortage of coins in the country. But the Reserve Bank of Malawi insists it has adequate stocks of all denominations of the kwacha and tambala currency and that it is unacceptable to use sweets as change. “The public, […]
NORTHERN Province Premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi accused British asbestos mining company Cape plc of leaving South Africa with a “legacy of death and suffering”. He was speaking during a press conference on Wednesday before leaving for England to meet with lawyers suing the company on behalf of about 5_000 poisoned South Africans. “Cape plc made use […]
JABU MHLABANE & SHARON HAMMOND, Pietersburg | Wednesday PAN Africanist Congress (PAC) youth in the Northern Province have taken a major step away from the controversial “one settler one bullet” war cry and extended an olive branch to farmers. The PAC’s youth wing, Pan Africanist Youth Congress of Azania (Payco) resolved at its annual congress […]
THE Zimbabwean government had dropped nine farms owned by the South African Oppenheimer mining dynasty from a list of commercial farms to be seized for land redistribution, the state-controlled Herald reported on Thursday. “Some 180 farms, among them six owned by foreign nationals and nine belonging to the Oppenheimer family, have been spared from acquisition,” […]
AUTHORITIES in eastern Nigeria have closed down a local government-run orphanage while an investigation is carried out into child trafficking and prostitution charges, an official said on Tuesday. The Umuoji Motherless Babies’ Home is run by officials of the Idemili North local government. Authorities had become suspicious last week and had raided the home and […]
BLACK and white Namibian farmers joined forces on Monday to put pressure on the government to speed up land reform to avoid Zimbabwe-style farm invasions, The Namibian reported on Tuesday. “Although many of our people … need land to improve their living conditions, political anarchy, violence, land-grabbing and farm invasions and mismanagement should be avoided […]
THE Namibian government has spent about N$300-million in fighting HIV-Aids over the last 10 years, Health Deputy Minister Richard Kamwi told Parliament. Kamwi said more money is needed to make the anti-retroviral drugs available to Namibians. According to Kamwi the use of condoms by sexually active adults has risen from one per cent in 1992 […]
HARARE | Wednesday ZIMBABWE war veterans threatened on Tuesday to boycott the funeral of their controversial leader, Chenjerai Hitler Hunzvi, if the government fails to award him national hero status, the state news agency said. Hunzvi, who led a bloody campaign of invasions of white commercial farms which started last year, died here Monday from […]
CHAD’S electoral commission announced on Sunday (27 May) that President Idriss Deby won more than 67% of the vote at presidential polls on 20 May, while his main rival, Ngarledjy Yorongar, scored about 13%. However, all six opposition candidates maintain that the elections were fraudulent and their parties appealed on Friday for the annulment of […]
HARARE | Monday ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe says the International Monetary Fund must be reformed to force it to support developing countries regardless of their political or rights records, the state-owned Herald said on Monday. Mugabe said that unlike the UN, where all members have an equal voice, the IMF is being used by powerful […]
THE Central African Republic ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said on Monday his country has never supported rebels trying to overthrow Kinshasa, despite DRC rebel support to Bangui. State radio reported that the ambassador, Sissa Le Bernard, was called in for a meeting on Monday with DRC Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu, […]
WINNIE MADIKIZELA-MANDELA, the ex-wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela, was discharged from a Johannesburg hospital Monday, her doctor said. Madikizela-Mandela (64) was admitted to hospital on Friday for high blood pressure after paying her respects to the family of deceased Aids icon Nkosi Johnson. “I think it was the stress that made her […]
UGANDAN police have arrested three people in connection with three bomb blasts in Kampala on Monday that injured 17 people, police representative Assuman Mugenyi said on Tuesday. The three explosions, described by police as home made pipe bombs, detonated between 8:20 and 8:40 p.m. (1720-1740 GMT) on Monday. Two of the bombs had been placed […]
THE rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLA) said Monday it was in firm control of the strategic town of Raga in the southwestern province of Bahr el-Ghazal, which it seized from the government at the weekend. Raga, which fell to the SPLA on Saturday, had been defended by 800 government troops, most of whom were […]
THE Revolutionary United Front (RUF) this week returned weapons, vehicles and military equipment seized last year from UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) peacekeepers. The handover took place on Wednesday in Makeni, 138km northeast of Freetown. On Tuesday, a Sierra Leonean army battalion crossed the Mange Bridge into Kambia, 80km northeast of Freetown, to reassert […]
THE department of land affairs in Northern Province is inviting willing farmers to sell their land to the government for a national project aimed at transferring 30% of arable land to black farmers within 15 years. Provincial land affairs spokesman Phumudzo Makharemedza said on Monday that there is presently insufficient land available in the region […]
BORNO became on Friday the latest northern Nigerian state to adopt Islamic law, media reported. Eight other states have already adopted Sharia while three have announced plans to do so over the past year and a half. There are 36 Nigerian states in total.
SOUTH African police are investigating the disappearance of a Mozambican International Metalworkers’ Federation official who a local union believes has been kidnapped, a spokeswoman said on Monday. Sergeant Amanda Roestoff said detectives were investigating the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Rui Benjamin Cossa. National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa spokesman Dumisa Ntuli said Cossa […]
ONE of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s staunchest supporters, war veteran leader Chenjerai Hunzvi is critically ill in hospital in Harare, state news agency ZIANA reported on Saturday. Police were guarding Hunzvi – who has spearheaded the invasions of around 1 700 white-owned farms – in an intensive care unit in the city’s main hospital, ZIANA […]
ZIMBABWE will have zero percent population growth next year, mainly because of the Aids pandemic which is ravaging the country, state television has reported. Health minister Timothy Stamps told state television late on Saturday that last year alone there were 100 000 Aids-related deaths in the southern African country. “It is hitting us where it […]
Cape Town | Monday THE United States has asked South Africa to hand over three large pieces of space debris that crashed to Earth outside Cape Town last year, but local scientists want to keep it. The debris – a pressurisation sphere, a propellant tank and part of the exhaust nozzle of a US Air […]
THREE toddlers were burnt to death when their thatched house caught alight at London farm in the central Zimbabwean city of Gweru on Friday. Police said nine month-old twins Lovemore and Loveness Matemera and their two-year-old brother Melody died when they accidentally set their parents’ hut alight. Police said the children’s mother had gone to […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Bujumbura | Monday THREE more civilians have been executed in Burundi to the north of the capital, Bujumbura, witnesses said on Sunday. It follows the execution of two civilians by Hutu rebels in the north of the country late on Friday. In the latest incident, one of the civilians killed was a local […]
SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki and veterans from the country’s anti-apartheid movement paid their last respects to June Mlangeni, a key figure in the country’s long fight against racism, on Saturday. Over 2 000 people turned out for the funeral in the Soweto township, to honour Mlangeni, who died on May 24 at the age […]
FORTY-four stolen artworks have been returned to Nigeria from a gallery in Zurich, Switzerland, under a drive by the new government to recover missing pieces. The artworks were flown into Nigeria on May 30 by the Galerie Walu of Zurich and handed over to officials of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments. The haul […]
MOZAMBICAN President Joaquim Chissano says he is ready to reopen stalled negotiations with Renamo, the country’s leading opposition party. Chissano was quoted in the daily Noticias responding to comments made by Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama that he is keen to start talks with government over the disputed 1999 elections after the last round of negotiations […]
HUGH NEVILL, Johannesburg | Sunday AIDS has killed some 15 million people in Africa over the past 20 years, and more than 25 million Africans are HIV-positive, according to the UN agency UNAIDS. APOLOGIES Due to unforeseen technical difficulties, this page will not be properly updated on Monday 4 June. Normal service will be resumed […]
A DANISH court fined a neo-Nazi militant 2_000 kronor (268 euros) on Thursday for shouting “nigger” at visiting South African President Thabo Mbeki. Esben Kristensen, a 31-year-old member of the Danish National Socialist Movement, was fined by a court in the northern city of Frederikshavn for verbally accosting Mbeki as he walked along a beach […]