BIG FREEZE TEMPERATURES plummeted across the country overnight as a new cold front swept inland, with daytime temperatures not expected to top 12 degrees C. Snow is falling in the Western Cape mountains and in Lesotho and the eastern Free State. Meanwhile, President Nelson Mandela and Welfare Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi will on Monday visit flood-hit areas of the Cape Peninsula, where 874 shacks have been destroyed and 1 000 families left homeless by recent storms.
PAHAD TO ASIA DEPUTY Foreign Affairs Minister Essop Pahad left for Asia on Monday, to bolster support for the Cape Town 2004 Olympic Bid. Pahad is accompanied by Bid representative Deni Madzunya, and will visit Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul.
BASSON TRIAL IN DECEMBER THE National Crop Estimates Committee released revised figures for South Africa’s grain and bean production in the 1997 season. The year’s maize yield is expected to be 8.218 million tons and the sorghum crop figure is 300 000 tons. The Committee also estimates 95 000 tons of groundnut, 115 000 tons of soya bean, 450,000 tons of sunflower seeds and 55 000 tons of dry beans.