Mail & Guardian reporters Investigators in South Africa’s R50-billion arms deal have expressed serious reservations about the advisability of public hearings into the procurement scandal due to open on Monday. The concerns have divided officials of the three investigating bodies although there are indications that the final format the hearings will take has partly allayed […]
ANGOLAN rebels killed 17 people in two ambushes in the centre and south of the country, the Roman Catholic radio station Ecclesia reported on Wednesday. Ten passengers were shot dead when men said to be members of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) attacked a lorry at Cacuso in the northern […]
Charlene Smith Over one weekend recently 80% of patients admitted to Johannesburg hospital were HIV-positive. Sixty per cent of the hospital’s paediatric admissions are HIV-infected and at least half of all patients are HIV-positive. The hospital is ill-equipped to deal with the crisis, seriously lacking in both medical staff and drugs. In a letter to […]
The Mail &Guardian and the ANC faced each other in court this week over the allegation that a white editor wrote an article and put a black journalist’s name above it, Khadija Magardie reports The Johannesburg High Court looks miles away from a resolution of the dispute between the Mail & Guardian and the country’s […]
Glenda Daniels Almost two years after the promulgation of the Employment Equity Act only 10% of the total workforce has undergone training in accordance with the provisions of the Act. A Department of Labour progress report on equity indicates that 84% of companies have conducted employment equity training. The National Union of Metalworkers of South […]
Glenda Daniels Boiling oil was an everyday feature in the 22 years of loyal service in kitchen worker’s Peter Mudogwa’s life at Wimpy Cresta. But he didn’t know it would one day kill him. Mudogwa, a member of the South African Commercial and Catering and Allied Workers’ Union (Saccawu), was burnt by boiling oil while […]
Chris McGreal Malcolm Rifkind, leader of the Tories’ Scottish election campaign, chose to run around the old Zulu battlefields. David Frost wants to pursue elephants. Rory Bremner has yet to decide but he is probably one of those who wants to meet Nelson Mandela. The three are among an array of British celebrities, politicians and […]
Fiona Macleod While the world signed a landmark treaty this week outlawing 12 of the most dangerous chemical concoctions, a major South African company continues to trade openly in one of these toxins. Chlordane, a pesticide used mainly on building sites to get rid of termites underground, is one of the persistent organic pollutants (POPs) […]
The Pretoria High Court heard claims of conflicting interests in its review of the Cell C licence award, but the real conflict of interest was not aired at all. Stefaans Brmmer reports Within one week Lebanon’s prime minister visits Saudi Arabia, where his company Saudi Oger is based; South Africa awards its third cellular network […]
TANZANIA?S third modern large-scale gold mine has started commercial production ahead of its official commissioning in mid-July, a company official said on Friday. “Gold is now pouring out at the mine … all is going on well,” said Roy Meada, general manager of Kahama Mining Corporation Limited, owners of the mine in the remote village […]
Anthony Holiday It needs no sage to see that, while the letter of parliamentary democracy in South Africa remains perilously intact, the spirit of that institution is already ailing. The symptoms of the disease are manifest, not only in the frictive partisanship which has infected the functioning of the parliamentary portfolio and oversight committees or […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The Mozambican public prosecuting authorities on Tuesday charged six people for the assassination of Carlos Cardoso, the editor of the independent newssheet, Metical. The six, who include businessman Ayob Abdul Satar and former bank manager Vicente Ramaya, were arrested following a six-month investigation. According to the prosecution Satar and Ramaya, former […]
Jean Redpath crossfire The trial of those accused of Rashaad Staggie’s murder began on Monday. The state was criticised for subpoenaing journalists. The press said the subpoenas were an infringement of press freedom and would have a “chilling effect” on media ability to gather news. But is the issue that clear cut? And who is […]
The Soweto stars clinched their first league title since 1994 Ntuthuko Maphumulo It took Orlando Pirates seven years, five different coaches, 90 minutes and three beautiful goals to clinch the Premier Soccer League (PSL) championship. Gordon Igesund became the second coach to win the championship twice and the first to win it with two different […]
A third South African police officer has been arrested for his apparent involvement in a group that are said to have raped young girls, The Star reports. The arrest this week follows investigations of at least 15 members of Pretoria’s Flying Squad. By Monday, four girls had already made statements to the investigating officers, and […]
THE Rwandan army killed 35 rebels and took into custody 21 others, most of them minors, after they launched an attack in a town in northwestern Rwanda, the deputy army chief said this week. The attack in Nyamutera, near Ruhengeri, was launched early on Sunday and continued until Monday morning, according to Brigadier General James […]
US Secretary of State Colin Powell left Washington late on Tuesday for his first African tour, a five-day trip that ends on Sunday. The trip is seen as an effort by the new administration to maintain US interest in Africa, building on the personal attention lavished on the troubled continent by former president Bill Clinton, […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Mbabane | Thursday THE Swaziland government has banned two news publications critical of the authorities for a second time, barely a week after the Swaziland High Court lifted an earlier ban on one of them. The government banned the weekly Guardian newspaper and monthly Nation magazine, both privately owned publications, in a gazette […]
JACQUES NELL might be the first white member to serve on the Northern province executive of the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce (Nafcoc) if he is elected at the organisation’s annual provincial conference on Thursday. Nell, who served as president of the South African Chamber of Business (SACOB) in Pietersburg for two years until […]
FORMER White House intern Monica Lewinsky wants to get back the blue dress reputed to carry traces of semen from former president Bill Clinton. Her lawyers are negotiating with investigators for the return of the dress, the Washington Times has quoted Lewinsky’s publisher as saying. The scandal surrounding Lewinsky and Clinton nearly cost Clinton the […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday THE war of words between the Mail & Guardian newspaper and the ANC has now come to a head in court, with the newspaper demanding a public apology from Public Enterprises Minister Jeff Radebe. Radebe, on behalf of the ANC, told the Human Rights Commission hearing into racism in the […]
SOUTH Africa’s biggest sugar firm Illovo Sugar said on Monday its headline earnings per share for the year ended March 31 had fallen 23% to 67.5 cents, but earnings would show good growth in the coming year. Illovo said it had paid a dividend of 34 cents compared to 48 cents for the previous year. […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Thursday FOREIGN investment in Zimbabwe dropped 61% between January and April this year compared to the same period last year, the country’s investment promotion agency was on Thursday quoted as saying. The state-owned Business Herald said statistics from the Zimbabwe Investment Centre (ZIC) showed that only 24 projects compared to 63 […]
IRIN, Johannesburg | Thursday AN Amnesty International (AI) research team has found widespread evidence of politically-motivated murder, torture, rape and violence. Tor-Hugne Olsen, head of the team, told IRIN on Wednesday that after spending a week in the country, they had established that such acts were “commonplace” and that the government was doing nothing to […]
ABOUT 80 bodies of Ghana’s football stampede victims remain unclaimed by relatives almost two weeks after their deaths. Lieutenant Colonel Sam Aninkora, administrator of the 37 Military Hospital in Accra, said the corpses had not been claimed although relatives had identified the bodies and submitted the required documents, including copies of death certificates. “This could […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, United Nations | Wednesday THE UN Security Council on Tuesday “strongly condemned” recent attacks by Angolan Unita rebels and urged the release of all civilians – both children and adults – currently being held by the armed group. The council particularly condemned Unita attacks on the town of Caxito, 60km from Luanda, and […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday THE United Transport and Allied Trade Union (Utatu) and the SA Logistics, Services and Allied Workers Union (Salstaff) have reached an agreement with Spoornet management on a wage increase, Spoornet said in a statement. Spoornet representative Mike Asefovitz said the agreement was reached with two of the three unions involved […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maputo | Wednesday HALF a year after the assassination of Mozambican journalist Carlos Cardoso – editor of the independent fax newspaper Metical – the country’s public prosecutor’s office has charged six people for the murder, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) reported on Tuesday. Quoting the Tuesday issue of Metical, Misa said […]
MAI Mai tribal kidnappers holding at least 19 Thai nationals hostage in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are just bandits seeking money, according to rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba. His comments contradicted remarks by Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai who said pm Tuesday the kidnappers’ motives were political and the hostages would be released within […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Monday TWO of nine club rugby players charged with murdering a black teenager in South Africa were refused bail in the Pretoria High Court on Monday, while four others were granted it. One of the remaining three accused did not apply for bail, another was granted bail earlier by the High […]
A UN Security Council delegation on Sunday announced the reopening to commercial traffic of the Congo river, the main supply line to the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo and which has been closed for almost three years by war. Navigation on the river between the capital Kinshasa and Kisangani, the country’s third largest […]
THREE children were killed when a bomb dating from the 1954-1962 Algerian war of independence exploded in Ouled Hezaz, near the countrys eastern border with Tunisia. The two sisters and their brother found the bomb on Friday on the so-called “Challe et Morice” line – an electrified borderline which French troops densely planted with land […]