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/ 23 November 2005
Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba has requested South Africa send forensic experts to help investigate apartheid-era mass graves recently found in the north of the country, Namibian Minister of Safety and Security Peter Tsheehama said late on Tuesday.
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/ 17 November 2005
”We have cried long enough,” says Hilde Wiese, a commercial farmer from Namibia, her eyes red. ”Now we’re actually pleased that it’s all over.” This week, a chapter of colonial history closed as the Wieses prepared to vacate their farm, the first white-owned farm to be expropriated under Namibia’s fast-tracked land-reform programme.
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/ 11 November 2005
After nearly two months of defiance, disgraced former Swapo youth leader Paulus Kapia has finally relented and resigned his seat in Parliament. This after a last ditch attempt by his mentor, former president Sam Nujoma, to sway the party’s politburo to hold fire until a corruption court case currently under way in Namibia is concluded.
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/ 1 November 2005
The trial of 120 Namibians for alleged treason and participation in a failed separatist uprising six years ago resumed on Tuesday with the suspects requesting a ”political dialogue” with the government. Speaking on behalf of the group supposedly active in Namibia’s restive Caprivi region, one of the accused, Martin Tubaundule, made the demand to Judge Elton Hoff.
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/ 28 October 2005
Nama-speaking tribes in Namibia will flock to a tiny village this weekend to pay tribute a famous chief who raised the banner of revolt against German colonial forces but was killed in battle a century ago. Tribal members will descend on Gibeon, a small town about 360km south of Windhoek, to commemorate Hendrik Witbooi, who perished on 29 October 1905 while fighting the German army.
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/ 28 September 2005
A German-language Namibian weekly is to publish an apology after an advertisement appeared in its pages celebrating the death of ”the big monster” Simon Wiesenthal, the publisher said on Wednesday. Hans Feddersen, of the Plus weekly, admitted that it was ”not a good idea” to publish the advertisement.
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/ 26 September 2005
Namibia’s land reform programme is flawed because poor and landless people are not being empowered to become successful farmers once they have been resettled, claims a new report. The Legal Assistance Centre, a local NGO, stressed that land reform involved more than just ”buying or expropriating land from one group in order to give more land to another group”.
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/ 19 September 2005
About 70 Namibian farmworkers and their families face an uncertain future after the first expropriation of a white-owned farm by the government and are fighting to retain their jobs and homes. The Namibia Farmworkers’ Union has taken up their case and says the workers, who face penury and homelessness according to the present owner, cannot be cast away on the roadside.
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/ 5 September 2005
Namibia’s latest financial investment scandal has claimed a Cabinet scalp. Paulus Kapia, the Deputy Minister of Works, Transport and Communication, who only a few months ago was the most favoured foot soldier of former state President Sam Nujoma, has resigned over his role in an asset management company linked to the embezzlement of a R30-million investment of the Social Security Commission.
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/ 2 September 2005
The first compulsory sale of a white-owned farm concluded in Namibia this week, bringing fresh impetus to the government’s land-reform programme and raising concerns among white farmers of Zimbabwean-style land seizures. ”we have no choice and we have to make the best of it,” said the farm owner.
Namibia’s biggest graft scandal since independence has claimed the job of a government minister and led to the apparent suicide of a key witness, an official and press reports said on Thursday. Deputy Minister of Works, Transport and Communication Paulus Kapia quit on Wednesday night.
Former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano said on Friday he is ”ready” to mediate between Zimbabwe’s ruling party and the opposition, following his appointment to broker talks in the crisis-hit Southern African country. ”I will now assess if the two sides wish to talk to each other,” Chissano said.
Namibia’s government is set to serve final notices of expropriation on 18 white commercial farmers after it failed to reach an agreement on the price of the land in the arid Southern African country. ”If there is no other solution, then that is the way to go,” Lands Minister Jerry Ekandjo said late on Thursday.
Newly elected Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba on Sunday extended the olive branch to the country’s white Afrikaners, but warned that an unwillingness to share land in the arid country ”could spark a revolution”. Pohamba became the first head of state since Namibian independence in 1990 to attend a church service of the Dutch Reformed Church.
An international film team which apparently disappeared while on assignment in a remote part of Namibia has been found safe in a bizarre case said to involve a Hollywood sex guru, a Russian Rambo, a British businessman and African witchcraft.
Namibia’s Herero community is pressing Germany to offer reparations for its extermination campaign against the tribe during colonial rule as its leaders opened a new history museum funded by Berlin. The museum has been criticised by the Herero chief as merely a ”public relations exercise”.
”Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue” is how University of Namibia professor of political studies Bill Lindeke described Namibia’s new government after Hifikepunye Pohamba replaced Sam Nujoma as state president on Monday. A Namibian current affairs magazine has dubbed Pohamba the ”Old Man — Mark II” to show how little things were likely to change.
Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba, who was sworn in on Monday as the Southern African country’s second head of state since independence, is known for his close ties to Sam Nujoma, whose legacy he has vowed to pursue.
President-elect Hifikepunye Pohamba was sworn in on Monday as Namibia’s second president since independence, succeeding veteran leader Sam Nujoma who held power in the Southern African country for 15 years. Pohamba took the oath to uphold the Constitution before 20 000 people assembled at a stadium in Windhoek.
Namibian President Sam Nujoma on Saturday hailed his country’s 15-year record of democracy and peace, as he gave his farewell speech to Parliament before he steps down. He praised the members of the former Constituent Assembly who elected him as head of state in 1990 and who drafted the country’s Constitution after its independence.
A recount of Namibia’s parliamentary elections ended on Wednesday with officials confirming the original results of the November polls, which handed victory to the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation party by a landslide. A court ordered the recount of the poll in the southern African country after two opposition parties had complained of widespread irregularities.
Namibia’s founding President Sam Nujoma will be studying geology, setting up his own charity foundation and enjoying the lifestyle afforded to a serving head of state when he retires in a week’s time. The white-bearded and bespectacled veteran leader will retain the powerful post of president of the ruling South West African Peoples’ Organisation (Swapo) until 2007.
Namibia’s High Court on Thursday ordered a recount of ballots from the November parliamentary elections that were overwhelmingly won by the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation party. But the judge refused to grant a request from two opposition parties that the elections should be declared null and void due to irregularities.
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/ 21 February 2005
It is the type of retirement package by which even those leaders most wedded to their jobs might be seduced. When outgoing Namibian President Sam Nujoma hands over power to his successor, Hifikepunye Pohamba, on March 21, he will continue receiving the same monthly salary as the Southern African country’s new leader.
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/ 19 February 2005
It is the type of retirement package that even those leaders most wedded to their jobs might be seduced by. When outgoing Namibian President Sam Nujoma hands over power to his successor, Hifikepunye Pohamba, on March 21, he will continue receiving the same monthly salary as the new leader of the country.
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/ 2 February 2005
A Namibian Supreme Court judge arrested on charges of kidnapping two young girls from a township bus stop and sexually assaulting them was granted bail on Wednesday. Magistrate Sarel Jacobs posted bail of N 000 (R9 600) for Judge Tio Peek and ordered him to hand in his passport.
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/ 1 February 2005
A Namibian Supreme Court judge has been arrested on charges of kidnapping two young girls from a township bus stop and sexually assaulting them. Judge Pio Teek was arrested around noon on Monday in the capital in connection with the case involving a nine- and 10-year-old girl, said police spokesperson Hieronymus Goraseb.
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/ 24 November 2004
Four of Namibia’s opposition parties said on Wednesday that they plan to ask the high court to order a recount of ballots cast in elections last week that handed a landslide victory to the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo) party. Swapo won 75,1% of the vote, its third victory since Namibia’s independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990.
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/ 23 November 2004
Namibia’s small opposition parties on Monday raised questions about last week’s election results which the ruling party and its presidential candidate, Hifikepunye Pohamba, won with a landslide victory. The ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo) won 75,1% of the ballot in parliamentary elections and retained its 55 seats in the 72-member National Assembly, while Pohamba got 76,4% of the presidential vote.
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/ 20 November 2004
President Sam Nujoma’s chosen successor, Hifikepunye Pohamba, won an overwhelming victory in elections in Namibia, garnering more than 77% of the vote, results from more than half of counted ballots showed on Friday. Pohamba is to become Namibia’s second president since independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990.
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/ 18 November 2004
Namibian President Sam Nujoma’s chosen successor, Hifikepunye Pohamba, held a commanding lead on Thursday as first results of elections in the Southern African country of Namibia were released. Namibians voted on Monday and Tuesday to choose a new leader to fill the shoes of founding president and liberation hero Nujoma.
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/ 17 November 2004
Namibia’s president-in-waiting Hifikepunye Pohamba says expropriations of white farms are ”going to happen” in his Southern African country but has pledged to ”talk, talk, talk” to make them as painless as possible. In an interview with AFP, Pohamba portrayed himself as a man of dialogue who is sensitive to the impact that land reform can have on people’s lives in this country of 1,82-million people.