US based Human Rights Watch called on the Democratic Republic of Congo to spare the lives of four child soldiers, who were aged between 14 and 16 when they were sentenced to death by Congo’s Court of Military Order. The rights advocacy group said the DRC has executed at least one child soldier, a 14-year-old […]
Peter Robinson cricket Normal service having been resumed by Shaun Pollock’s South Africans in the Caribbean, this might be as good a point as any to consider the vexed question of rotation. By way of explanation, rotation is the selection policy employed by Manchester United football club and the Australian one-day cricket team. As a […]
Stefaans Brmmer An undeclared intelligence unit based at Luthuli House, the African National Congress national headquarters in Johannesburg, played a key role unearthing the “plot” against President Thabo Mbeki. The unit, which appears to report directly to Mbeki in his capacity as ANC president, was deployed as early as 1998 to investigate former Mpumulanga premier […]
Glenda Daniels Had the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) been invited to the African National Congress’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting when the alleged “plot” to oust President Thabo Mbeki was first discussed, the debacle, which has seriously embarrassed the government nationally and internationally, might not have happened. An official of the National […]
South Africa are almost home and dry in their bid to qualify for the World Cup again Ntuthuko Maphumulo If Bafana Bafana manage to overcome Zimbabwe on Saturday, expect Soccer City to erupt as victory would almost guarantee South Africa a place in next year’s World Cup finals in Japan and Korea. Beating our northern […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday CYRIL Ramaphosa, chairman of the Black Economic Empowerment Commission is to suggest that an Act be promulgated for the economic empowerment of blacks, which will force companies to invest 10% of their assets in areas of national priority, Sake Beeld reports. Beeld said that according to an article on the […]
A YOUNG Egyptian bride who was disenchanted with her new husband simply fled during her honeymoon and married another man at a nearby resort, the government daily al-Akhbar reported on Tuesday. Nefissa Abdel Hamid, a 26-year-old servant, left her 38-year-old truck driver husband 20 days after their wedding, and was married again, without having obtained […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday PROSTITUTES who questioned long distance truck drivers in South Africa and took spit samples found that a third of those surveyed always stopped for sex during journeys, and more than half tested HIV-positive, according to a study made public this week. The country’s Medical Research Council said the questions […]
LEADING cement and concrete producer Pretoria Portland Cement is set to acquire a 48% stake in the Zimbabwean cement manufacturer, Portland Holdings, for over R200m, SABC radio news reported on Wednesday. PPC told the public broadcaster an agreement had been reached with Anglo-American Zimbabwe and its associate companies to finalise the deal. It planned to […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday THE biggest trial to date of members of the Muslim vigilante group PAGAD began in a South African high court on Wednesday when three men pleaded not guilty to 138 charges including murder and kidnapping. Ebrahim Jeneker and brothers Abdullah and Ismail Maansdorp are accused of robbing two Cape […]
A 27-year-old Nigerian man, held for months in a detention centre in Switzerland after being refused asylum, died on Tuesday after a struggle with police ordered to forcibly repatriate him. Police said the man, who was not identified, resisted attempts by the two officers to handcuff him prior to escorting him to Zurich airport. After […]
THE Baptist Church in Nigeria is refusing to marry couples unless they present certificates proving they are free of the HIV virus that causes Aids, Nigeria’s Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday. “Baptist ministers should demand a certificate of a HIV/Aids test from would-be couples before they are joined in holy matrimony,” the paper quoted a statement […]
RICHARD Branson on Wednesday launched the Virgin Group of Companies’ latest product in South Africa – bottles of still mineral water. Virgin Water, sourced locally in the Drakensberg mountains, will be sold at the group’s newly acquired South African chain of Virgin Active health clubs, Virgin boss Branson said at a media conference. “We’re experimenting […]
JAN HENNOP, Pretoria | Thursday PALESTINIAN leader Yasser Arafat declared on Wednesday that “we are trying our best” to find peace in the Middle East as he arrived in South Africa for a meeting with ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Arafat met later with President Thabo Mbeki, the current chairman of the pro-Palestinian movement, […]
PRECARIOUS calm returned to Algeria on Monday after a weekend of further rioting by enraged members of the nation’s Berber ethnic minority that brought the estimated death toll to about 80. Young Berbers went on the rampage in the northeastern Kabylie region after a teenager was shot dead in a police cell on April 18. […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Gaborone | Wednesday THE head of Botswana television news and current affairs Chris Bishop has resigned over government attempts to control broadcasts, Bishop told the South African news agency Sapa. “The journalists at BTV and myself have often been harassed by officialdom. It has rendered the running of TV news impractical,” Bishop said, […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Abidjan | Wednesday AMNESTY International called on Liberia and the international community on Tuesday to halt what it said were abductions, gang rape, torture and murder of unarmed innocents in the west African state. The human rights group claimed an anti-terrorist unit had raped a pregnant woman and stamped on her stomach, causing […]
POVERTY elimination strategies should treat women not only as the worst victims of poverty, but also as potential agents of change, Education Minister Kader Asmal said on Monday. In a speech prepared for delivery at the opening of an expert group meeting on water-related environmental education in African cities, Asmal said there was little recognition […]
TWO Congolese politicians were found shot to death on Monday near the southern city of Lubumbashi in what authorities suspect was a politically motivated killing. The bodies of Kienge Lukonde and Kioni Kyanukenbe were discovered early Monday morning in a car by the side of the road, said Kazadi Dikanga, an official in Katanga Province. […]
TWO Englishmen began a 64_000 km journey on foot across four continents, expected to take seven years, from Cape Point in South Africa on Tuesday, local television reported. The adventurers, James Tremayne and David Thompson, intend to follow the trail by the humans who inhabited southern Africa 120_000 years ago and migrated across the world. […]
NASDAQ-listed Quokka Sports, the Australian company that provided the first Internet sports coverage that beat television, has gone bankrupt after burning through A$100m in seed money. News reports quoted founder Alan Ramadan as blaming the fall of the five-year-old San Francisco-based company on a “dramatic downturn in advertising” and the lack of high-speed cable networks […]
DICKSON JERE, Lusaka | Wednesday THE political rift widened within Zambia’s ruling party on Tuesday after a court stopped President Frederick Chiluba ousting over 200 rivals to his unconstitutional re-election bid. Chiluba’s Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) was to vote on Tuesday on a resolution to kick out more than 200 members who had boycotted […]
TWO South Africans on trial for murder in Botswana were not legally extradited to that country, says a justice ministry spokesman. Paul Setsetse said the two men were arrested by South African and Botswana police in the North West province a few weeks ago. However, it subsequently emerged that they had not been legally extradited […]
THE circumstances of many women who had killed their husbands or partners had not been adequately taken into account by the country’s courts, says the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation?s Lisa Vetten. Vetten, who is calling for a presidential pardon for women in abusive relationships who are convicted of murdering their husbands, […]
AT least seven people died and 51 were injured on Sunday when rival fans invaded the pitch during a football match in Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo. An eyewitness said victims were trampled to death and asphyxiated when panic broke out. Police intervened using teargas after rival fans began exchanging insults and hurling […]
THE coalition backing Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade, winner of a historic presidential election in March 2000, seems to have swept early legislative elections. According to first results issued during the night the Sopi (Change) coalition built around Wade’s liberal Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) was well ahead of its adversaries, political analysts said. With nearly 50 […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday IN the years since the landmark Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the world has forged ahead to feed, clothe and house its people – at a steep environmental expense, organisers of the next summit said. A decade after Rio, world leaders and environmentalists will gather again in Johannesburg in […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday THE Congress of South African Students (Cosas) is set to clash with the government after it vowed to prevent pupils from going to Gautengs private and former Model C schools, The Star newspaper reports. The student body was also said to have threatened to wreck classrooms at the schools. The […]
SOME 330 skeletons, including those of women and children, have been recovered from a mass grave – dating from Algeria’s bloody independence war 40 years ago – at the village of Cheria, some 430km east of the capital Algiers. The grave could contain as many as 600 bodies, said to have been shot by special […]
A COURT in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria has sentenced two Christians to one-year jail terms for selling alcohol, a court official said on Friday. A magistrate court in Gusau, the capital of Zamfara state, on Thursday sentenced Anthony Agumu and Frank Idoko each to one year in prison or an option of paying a 10,000 […]
SEX remains an essential activity for the elderly, and can extend lifespans, but it needs to be part of a total human experience to be enjoyed in advanced years, a medical conference was told on Friday. Biological changes that come with ageing as well as disease, depression and stress can affect sexual performance and satisfaction, […]
THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed for the first time in 17 years to lay down a formula for Sudan to repay its $20bn debts, says Central Bank governor Sabir al-Hassan. Sudanese Finance Minister Abdel Rahim Mahmoud Hamdi had asked IMF managing director Horst Koehler to speed up implementation of the plan. Hassan also […]