BRAZZAVILLE FIGHTING ESCALATES FIGHTING in the Congo capital Kinshasa escalated on Tuesday, once again putting peace talks in jeopardy. The tense situation in the city has been characterised by almost daily ceasefires, which are broken as they are announced. The opposing sides were reported to have spent the day trading mortar and machinegun fire near […]
TUESDAY, 5.30PM SHARES on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange recovered on Tuesday as sentiment improved following the arrest of gold’s headlong slide. The gold index gained 2% to end the day 20,7 points up at 924,6, while industrials gained 13,6 points to close at 8 756,6, together pulling the all share index up 13,2 points to […]
WEDNESDAY, 2.30PM: SPRINGBOK fullback Andre Joubert will miss the tri-nation rugby matches against New Zealand and Australia which start on July 19 because of injury. Joubert will join injured centre Japie Mulder on the sidelines. Mulder is suffering from a serious shoulder injury while Joubert broke down in training on Monday. Joubert initially suffered an […]
MONDAY, 8.00AM FORMER Zimbabwe President Canaan Banana finally made his court appearance yesterday on 11 sodomy and indecent assault charges — but neither the public nor the press were there to see the case. First, prosecutors switched the court room at the last minute in an abortive attempt to fool the public. Then magistrate Jaqueline […]
TUESDAY, 11.00AM ISCOR is considering ending production at its Pretoria steel mill after the loss-making plant failed to turn around despite cost cutting and production changes. If the plant is mothballed, 1 400 jobs will be on the line. A decade ago the Pretoria mill led Iscor’s production, producing 800 000 tons of carbon steel […]
TUESDAY, 12.00NOON A JOHANNESBURG inquest into the deaths of 21 people during attacks on commuter trains in 1990 heard at its start on Monday that nine of the 10 suspects in the case have “disappeared” from Jeppe Hostel, where they were living at the time. Five people were killed and 17 injured on September 6 […]
TUESDAY, 11.00AM: THE South African Football Association (Safa) terminated its contract with its controversial marketing arm, Awesome Sports International (ASI), on Monday. From now on every soccer event will be controlled by Safa. Awesome Sports International was appointed three years ago to promote the Four Nations Tournament, to organise most of Bafana Bafana’s international matches, […]
TUESDAY, 8.00AM POLICE broke up rallies in Kenyan towns yesterday, firing rubber bullets and beating pro-reform demonstrators with truncheons and pick-axe handles in violent clashes which left nine people dead — some of them children — and many injured. Demonstrations and rallies were held in 56 towns around the country, demanding constitutional reforms before presidential […]
TUESDAY, 9.30AM: THE 1997 Comrades marathon winner Charl Mattheus will run in the Davos 67km mountain race in the Swiss Alps on July 27. Mattheus was unsure whether he would run in the marathon after pulling a hamstring muscle while on a training run. “It was touch and go whether I would accept the invitation. […]
TUESDAY, 5.00PM THE “Wit Wolwe” (white wolves), the shadowy rightwing group that rose to prominence after self-confessed Wit Wolf Barend Strydom went on a killing spree in Pretoria in 1988, never existed, but was a propaganda project of the Vlakplaas police hit-squad unit, Afrikaans daily Beeld reported on Tuesday. Quoting an unnamed former Vlakplaas operative, […]