The Latest News
BUTHA-BUTHE — The president of the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) youth league has distanced the youth wing from a petition sent to the prime minister calling for a cabinet reshuffle. Mosala Mojakisane, told an LCD rally in Butha-Buthe last Sunday that the youth wing was not behind the petition that was sent to Prime […]
MASERU – Two men who are facing murder charges told the High Court on Tuesday that they confessed to the murder after they were assaulted by the police. Simon Phamotse Mosala and Maloro Mokhethi are alleged to have killed Phakiso Mpota on 25 October 2007 at Ha Sethuamajoe, Semonkong in Maseru district. Mpota had accused […]
AS I SEE IT FROM history archives we read that from the late nineteenth century men from southern African countries trekked to work in the gold and diamond mines in neighbouring South Africa.These included hundreds of men from Lesotho. Basotho men were driven to the South African mines because their means of livelihood in […]
WELKOM – He is dirty and frail, his speech punctuated by a hard, rasping cough that buckles his small frame. He frequently spits up a brownish gunk on to the sludge outside G-hostel, the hub of illegal mining activities in Thabong, a township outside Welkom. Sipho Mahabane is 22 but looks 10 years older. He’s […]
Bottoms Up with Bacchus CAN you imagine what happens if you publicly accuse the sponsor of your binge of being a notorious bed-hopper? A pal of mine will warn you never to commit such a crime after he opened his mouth too wide just two beers into last Saturday night. It’s not like he […]
MASERU — Property worth about M2 million was reduced to ashes after a fire gutted a furniture shop in the Maseru industrial area on Sunday night. Investigators suspect that the fire at Selkol, a furniture manufacturing company, could have been caused by an electrical fault. Selkol’s mananing director Osmansally Moosa said the fire started at […]
Steaming It Off THERE are things that one gets so used to that when they are no more you actually feel the void — the emptiness of loss. These “things” may vary in terms of the impact or effect they may have on you once they are no longer there. For example, when you […]
Doctor’s Corner BREAST problems are a common reason for patients to visit their doctor and many would be worried about having breast cancer. But only one in 10 patients referred to surgical clinics have a cancer — the remainder have a variety of conditions going under the general title of “benign breast disease”. Many […]
MASERU — They have toiled for 450 minutes without finding the net. Their last win came exactly 330 days ago when they edged the Comoros 1-0 at the Cosafa Senior Challenge Cup in South Africa. The slide on the FIFA world rankings has continued unabated. At number 164, Lesotho are only better than 43 of […]
MASERU — For the past five years Lesotho’s national team has plummeted, unabated, down FIFA’s world rankings. It’s a freefall that’s been without check or care, and has quickened over the last 16 months. Since an all-time high ranking of 120 in December 2003, Likuena have proceeded to win only eight of their following 40 […]
MASERU — Lesotho captain Lehlohonolo Seema has signed a three-year contract extension with South African football giants Orlando Pirates. The influential defender signed the new deal a fortnight ago. Seema, 29, joined Pirates in 2006 and his contract was expiring at the end of this month. Pirates coach Ruud Krol has signalled intentions to trim […]
WELKOM – About 100 illegal miners, most of them from Lesotho, still trapped in the South African mine where 86 others have been confirmed dead have refused to come out fearing arrest. Hundreds of illegal miners were trapped underground at Harmony Gold’s disused Eland Shaft in Welkom after a fire broke out. Most of the […]
THABA-TSEKA – The people of Ha-Noko village in Thaba-Tseka are grieving. Nine men from the village were among the 86 people who perished in the illegal mining disaster in Welkom, South Africa. It will take a long time for the villagers to come to terms with the loss. When 21-year-old Motebang Khopholi left Ha-Noko to […]
WELKOM – The smell of death wafts through the air around the Welkom Government Mortuary. It is in this morgue where 86 died bodies of the illegal miners who perished in the mining disaster are kept. Eland shaft where the miners died sits to the south-west of the mortuary. It is in this mine were […]
MASERU – Lesotho People’s Congress (LPC) leader, Advocate Kelebone Maope, last Thursday called for the setting up of a judicial inspectorate to monitor the work of judges. Maope, who is also the Member of Parliament for Seqonoka constituency, was testifying to the commission of inquiry set up by the Law Society of Lesotho to probe […]
MASERU — The troubled MKM is making moves to get court proceedings suspended pending finalisation of depositors’ payout deal negotiations between the firm and the government. The auditors firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, which investigated the MKM’s affairs, has already submitted the final report in the High Court recommending liquidation. The central bank of Lesotho had engaged PWC […]
AS I SEE IT THERE is a Sesotho proverb that says: Thupa e otlolloa esale metsi. Loosely translated this means a branch of a tree must be straightened up while growing before it gets dry as it would break when straightened when it is old. I am told that children of yester-year were good mannered […]
MASERU — The youth league of the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) party on Saturday petitioned Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili to reshuffle his cabinet and fire incompetent ministers. The petition urged Mosisili to restructure his cabinet, appoint new assistant ministers and dismiss some government ministers for alleged incompetence. The petition was drawn up following […]
MASERU — Blue Financial Services, one of Lesotho’s biggest money lenders, is facing serious cash flow problems that have forced it to delay disbursing loans to clients, the Lesotho Times can reveal. The South African-owned financial institution has been struggling to get enough money to give out loans for the past two weeks because the […]
Bottoms Up with Bacchus JUST what is this IFMIS animal that has caused so much pandemonium in our drinking halls? Of late Bacchus has been hearing this acronym a lot even from people who have never seen a blackboard in their lives. It’s now the common alibi that some of my boozing mates use to […]
Steaming It Off THE ratio of men to women is somewhere in the region of one to five here in our little village. However, this does not give the male species the right to become the two-timing rascals they have masterfully become. We all know this is not a new phenomenon and we also know […]
Doctor’s Corner LAST week we looked at “bad breath” and how to control it. Now we turn to another hot topic of dental and social significance — the general aspects of oral health and hygiene. Oral health, by definition, means being free of long-term mouth and facial pain, oral and throat cancer, oral sores, birth […]
MASERU — Newly crowned Buddie Premier League champions Lioli are on a collision course with their predecessors, LCS, over the right to represent Lesotho in the African Champions League. The Lesotho Football Association (LEFA) last October decreed that LCS would play in Africa next year after failing to register the prisons side in the Champions […]
MASERU — At last Lesotho have found opponents. Likuena will play Swaziland in a double-header next week. The fixtures come as a godsend for Lesotho whose overtures for friendly matches in the past month had been turned down by the likes of Ghana and Malawi. Likuena had hoped to get a game against Mozambique on […]
MASERU — Edwin Tšiu is forthright, sturdy and fearless. But then those aren’t surprising qualities of a man who terrorised defences throughout a glorious, but sadly forgotten, career that spanned 15 years. A fierce forward — firstly for Qacha’s Liphakoe and then famously for Matlama — Tšiu is a footballing immortal. As part of a […]
MASERU — Buddie Premier League champions Lioli have clinched a partnership deal with telecommunications company Econet-Telecom. “We have signed a strategic business partnership with Econet-Telecom,” Lioli president Lebohang Thotanyana said at a press conference last Friday. “The deal is purely commercial. It is not sponsorship. “But we can reveal that we are in business with […]
MASERU — The Thaba-Tseka District Football Association (DIFA) will hold B Division Top Five finals this weekend in in the district. The winners of the finals will represent Thaba-Tseka at the B Division inter-district competition in Maseru next month. Five teams — LHDA, Rangers, Swallows, Thaba-Tseka United and a yet-to-be-confirmed team — will be in […]
MASERU — A soldier shot and killed his two colleagues and seriously injured another one at Mokhotlong Military Base on Sunday night following what investigators suspect to have been a heated argument. The incident happened on Sunday night around 10pm. One of the soldiers died on the spot while the other was pronounced dead on […]
BUTHA-BUTHE — The All Basotho Convention (ABC) leadership is fuming. They want the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) party to “immediately stop badmouthing Tom Thabane and disrespecting ABC party regalia at its rallies”. And if this does not stop the ABC says it will be forced retaliate to defend Thabane’s reputation and protect the […]
MASERU — A rebel faction of the Basotho National Party (BNP) party says it will hold its own counter celebrations to mark the birthday of the party’s founder Chief Leabua Jonathan in October. Suspended BNP youth league president, Alexis Hanyane, told a press conference last week that the faction will hold its own celebrations at […]
