ABSA Bank and BoE Bank have entered into a business venture called MultiBank Processing where Absa Bank will in future maintain all the cheque processing functions of BoE Bank. It is the first time in South Africa that such an agreement has been reached between two banks. Absa Bank approached BoE Bank for a business […]
FRENCH newspapers on Tuesday paid homage to Cameroonian composer and writer Francis Bebey, who died on Monday morning in Paris at the age of 72, sending shock waves through the African music world. Bebey, who had been in poor health for some time, was instrumental in bringing African music to the rest of the world. […]
Johannesburg | Tuesday SOUTH Africa’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the government acted unconstitutionally by handing over a Tanzanian bombing suspect to the United States where he faces the death penalty. An international legal expert, however, said he doubted whether the court’s ruling would have an influence on the outcome of the trial. Khalfan Khamis […]
HUGO YOUNG, Pretoria | Tuesday SENIOR army officers in Zimbabwe have secretly warned the South African government that they may launch a coup against Robert Mugabe if the growing political and economic crisis results in riots. Pretoria has strongly advised against any move to overthrow the Zimbabwean president by force but has been made aware […]
ONE hundred amputees from the south-western Somali region of Baidoa, who are victims of the civil strife there, are to receive artificial limbs from the Rotary Clubs of Nairobi and Bombay and the UN Development Programme (UNDP). Somalia UNDP bureau senior deputy representative Andrea Tamagnini told journalists in Nairobi on Monday that the move was […]
Johannesburg | Tuesday Vandals have bludgeoned to death nine endangered jackass penguins, two pelicans and two gannets at an aquarium in the coastal city of East London, police said on Tuesday. “They appear to have been bludgeoned to death with a heavy instrument,” police Captain Sibongile Ndyoko said. “The birds weren’t killed for meat, because […]
NELSPRUIT will host the continent’s first African Peace Through Tourism Conference in March 2002 as part of a pan-African initiative to use the economic benefits of tourism to bring regional stability. The conference, designed to foster wider institutional support community tourism projects, is expected to attract an estimated 600 international delegates and is underwritten by […]
A NORTHERN Province nurse who left a pregnant woman alone in the back of an ambulance and was unaware when she fell out and died, was officially dismissed on Friday after being found guilty of gross dereliction of duty. Stella Kubhayi (25), a nurse at Tintsaolo Hospital in Acornhoek, has five days to appeal against […]
Johannesburg | Monday ZIMBABWES opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have called on Zimbabweans living in South Africa to help the party end President Robert Mugabe’s 20-year rule. MDC deputy president Gibson Sibanda said hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans had fled to South Africa because of poverty, hunger and unemployment caused by the ruling Zimbabwe […]
THE number of Malawians being deported from South Africa has become embarrassing, said spokesman for Malawi’s immigration office, Hudson Makhwala. He said at least 87 Malawians were deported from South Africa in the past two weeks. “This is very embarrassing for the nation and Malawians need to be educated before they visit other countries,” Mankhwala […]
MUTINOUS soldiers in the Central African Republic attacked President Ange-Felix Patasse’s residence early Monday in an assault which left “many dead”, the president’s spokesman said. “The president is safe and sound,” said Patasse’s spokesman, Prosper Ndouba, adding that the battle caused the deaths of “seven members of the presidential security and many deaths among the […]
CENTRAL African Republic President Ange-Felix Patasse late on Monday declared a 6pm to 6am curfew in his country following a foiled coup attempt in which an unknown number of people were killed. Patasse’s representative Prosper Ndouba said that presidential guards in Bangui quelled a coup attempt on Monday, leaving “many dead” following an attack by […]
Cape Town | Tuesday A LEADING South African church group, His People’s Centre, has banned disgraced cleric Allan Boesak from preaching to its congregation for refusing to apologise to the community after his release from prison last week. Boesak, a former head of the World Alliance of Churches and leader of the African National Congress […]
CHRISTIAAN Barnard, the South African surgeon who transplanted the first human heart, has brought a Russian toddler to South Africa for emergency surgery as a favour to Soviet former president Mikhail Gorbachev, press reports said. Barnard was quoted as saying two-year-old Gleb Endokimov has a constriction in the main aorta as well as in the […]
Pretoria | Monday SOUTH Africa’s defence department was granted two weeks’ postponement on Monday of public hearings into alleged corruption in the government’s R50-billion arms procurement deal. Legal counsel for the department asked the presiding panel, chaired by Public Protector Selby Baqwa, to postpone the hearing due to its complicated nature. Baqwa granted the postponement […]
THERE has been an unprecedented growth in tourism in Africa during the past decade, according to data made available at the 36th meeting of the World Tourism Organisations Commission for Africa in Windhoek, Namibia. Yussuf Abdullahi Sukkar, chairman of the Commission for Africa, said that international tourist arrivals in the 1990s had increased by an […]
MINISTERS, academics and industrialists from the Commonwealth countries on Monday opened the 40th Session of the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Science Council in Cape Town. The one major purpose of the council is to enhance the capacity of its members to utilise science and technology for social, economic and environmental development. Ministers from Australia, […]
GOLD coins and mobile phones have rained down on people in southeast Egypt as a candidate, standing in the ongoing consultative council elections, decided to shower locals with incentives to sway their vote, a police source said on Sunday. Over the last four days, a glider bearing the name and election symbol of independent candidate […]
THE United States is to send emergency food aid to Sudan to help both the government-controlled north of the country as well as rebel-held south despite Washington’s tense relations with Khartoum, US officials said on Sunday. Andrew Niatsos, the head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) said the 40_000 ton of food for […]
A TUGBOAT and a US coastguard cutter both failed overnight to get a towline to a crippled car-carrier listing in heavy swells off South Africa’s southeast coast. Terry Taylor, representative for the port authority in Port Elizabeth, said an ocean-going salvage tugboat was on its way to aid the Panamanian-registered Modern Drive, and that three […]
THE SA rand held steady at firmer levels against the dollar in slow Monday trade, but struggled to pierce through 7.88 technical resistance in the absence of London and New York players, traders said. The rand made feeble attempts to break through 7.88/dollar, but was restrained by insufficient domestic factors, settling around 7.8875 against the […]
THE United States government will give Uganda $50-million in a five-year programme towards the prevention and fight against HIV/AIDS. Visiting Secretary of State Colin Powell dropped the hint on Sunday at Mulago Hospital in Kampala where he had gone to meet people living with HIV, after holding talks with his host President Yoweri Museveni. Powell, […]
THE caretaker of a mill in the southern town of Quss in Egypt, dreamt overnight he was killing his dog, awoke with a start and proceeded to open fire, wounding three soldiers, a police source said on Sunday. Yakoub Ashmawi, caretaker for Upper Egypt Mill, a company in Quss near Luxor, wounded the three soldiers […]
A CRIPPLED car carrier – listing heavily in swells off the South African coast – was under way on Monday under its own power and heading for a sheltered bay, a ports representative said. Terry Taylor said engineers on board the Panamanian-registered Modern Drive had got the ship’s engines going and that it was headed […]
TWO officials from Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have been abducted, apparently by pro-government war veterans, MDC spokesman Learnmore Jongwe said on Sunday. MDC parliamentarian Abedinico Bhebhe was kidnapped on Saturday from a petrol station in Nkayi, 260km southwest of Harare, Jongwe said. Joel Sithole, the MDC candidate for council elections in the […]
ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe has cancelled his trip to Jakarta for the G-15 summit of developing nations after one of his top ministers died in a car crash, the state-run Sunday Mail reported. Mugabe was due to leave on Sunday for the May 30-31 summit in Indonesia. He cancelled the trip after defense minister Moven […]
A UNITED States coastguard vessel was standing by a crippled car-carrier in heavy weather off South Africa’s southeast coast Saturday, a spokesman said. Terry Taylor, spokesman for the port authority in Port Elizabeth, said the USS Sherman, which happened to be in the area, responded to a South African appeal to aid the Panamanian-registered Modern […]
ALMOST a third of women in Mpumalanga have at some point been physically abused by their partners, says a study published in the latest issue of the South African Medical Journal. The study, by the Medical Research Council’s gender and health group, also found that just over a quarter of women in the Eastern Cape […]
A COURT in the northwestern Rwandan town of Gisenyi has sentenced 10 people to death and 23 to life imprisonment after convicting them of genocide and crimes against humanity, state radio reported on Saturday. Among those sentenced to death on Friday was Wellars Banzi, a former member of parliament and chairman in Gisenyi of the […]
US president George W. Bush will host South African President Thabo Mbeki next month to discuss bilateral relations and the situation in Africa, the White House has announced. “The two leaders will discuss the scope and future of the bilateral relationship between the United States and South Africa,” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said […]
ONE child died on Friday after police teargassed demonstrators in Chitipa, northern Malawi, who were demanding a new road, witnesses said on Saturday. The 10-year-old girl died from choking on the tear gas after the panicking demonstrators ran helter-skelter leaving her unattended, the witnesses said, speaking on condition of anonymity. About 5_000 people were marching […]
EIGHTEEN-year-old Ramatouoaye Diallo of Senegal beat 23 other contestants from 19 countries on Saturday to win the Face of Africa competition at the South African resort of Sun City. The win gives her $200_000 and a contract with a New York modeling agency. Diallo, a tall young woman who shaves her head, told the judges […]