THURSDAY, 5.00PM UGANDAN President Yoweri Museveni, widely regarded as the key supporter of Laurent Kabila, has advised his protege not to let himself be stampeded into “unrealistic” early elections. Museveni, who has resisted elections in his own country, urged Kabila to first rehabilitate infrastructure, arrest the country’s runaway inflation, and then set up the infrastructure […]
THURSDAY, 8.30AM DELEGATES to the World Economic Forum in Harare called for a regional Southern African common market amid criticism from business delegates that the target date — eight years away — was far too slow. “No country can work on its own,” said keynote speaker Nelson Mandela. “The pressures of a global economy increasingly […]
THURSDAY, 10.30AM MONEY market players are expecting the Reserve Bank to engineer a “soft landing” for about $1-billion in poroceeds from the partial privatisation of parastatal telecoms corporation Telkom. The money is expected to enter the financial system from Thursday, and the Bank has promised to ease its impact on the money market. Without intervention, […]
THURSDAY, 5.00PM GHANA has expelled a senior United States diplomat for “activities unacceptable for a diplomat”. Nicolas Robertson, head of US Information Service in Accra, appears to have intervened in the trial of two independent newspaper editors, on charge for libel after accusing government officials of dealing in drugs to buy arms. The acting Ghanaian […]
THURSDAY, 2.30PM THOUSANDS of banking staff marched in Pretoria and on Parliament in Cape Town on Thursday in protest at the recent spate of bank robberies. During the last 10 months of 1996, there were 506 bank robberies in SA, 193 of them in Gauteng. There have already been over 50 bank robberies in Gauteng […]
THURSDAY, 12.00NOON: THE British Lions management announced their team for the match against Eastern Province XV on Saturday, with tour captain Martin Johnson having been left out of the game. Prop Jason Leonard will lead the team in Port Elizabeth while Johnson rests, manager Fran Cotton said yesterday. “A lot of the guys have played […]
THURSDAY, 10.00AM: DARRON Smit of Auckland caused an upset when he beat Neil Burkett 21-12 in the Absa Insurance South Africa Men’s Bowls Championships in Killarney on Wednesday. Meanwhile Mark Kromhout also defeated SA champ Robbie Rayfield 21-12 in the quarterfinals. Gerry Baker remained in fine form — he beat KWV’s Stoffel Lambrecht 21-14 and […]
THURSDAY, 8.00AM DEFENCE MINISTER Joe Modise put on a spectacular fireworks display for delegates to a world anti-landmine conference, detonating the first of 4 700 mines at the remote Alkantpan army base in the Northern Cape. South Africa will destroy some R39-million worth of landmines in 18 more explosions over a five-month period ending in […]
THURSDAY, 10.30AM MINERAL and Energy Affairs Minister on Wednesday detailed far-reaching plans to restructure the energy, mining and petroleum industries, including consolidating Central Energy Fund companies and other state assets into a major public energy company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchenge. In his maiden budget speech to Parliament, Maduna said the new energy company […]
The West owes the region a debt of support "not as a question of charity, but because we are entitled to it," says Mandela.