SEVENTEEN people burned to death in a fuel pipeline fire in Nigeria. The fire erupted in the fuel pipeline after the victims, who were trying to illegally tap the duct, broke a valve on the pipe, company officials said on Wednesday. Fifteen people died on the spot and two more died later from burns received […]

PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki will go to Zimbabwe on Friday to see President Robert Mugabe about issues including the conflicts in Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo. The visit to Harare is part of South Africa’s efforts to improve its relations with its neighbours, Mbeki’s spokesman Parks Mankahlana said.

NIGERIA’S government has raised new conditions for releasing funds needed to restart the troubled Alscon aluminium smelter, company officials said on Thursday. Alscon officials said the government has tied the release of $150 million for running the plant to an assurance from foreign minority shareholders that they will complete the 193000 ton per year project […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 11.40am. THE government will take what steps it can to improve the domestic economy, including facilitating lower interest rates, cutting taxes and improving savings, Trade Minister Alec Erwin said on Wednesday. ”We will continue the complex process of managing the interest rate down so as to increase investment, particularly […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT | Wednesday 7.00pm HEAVY rains which wracked Mpumalanga, the Northern Province and Gauteng over the past few days, killing at least 27 people and leaving scores missing and hundreds of thousands homeless had abated by late Wednesday. However the Weather Bureau has warned that more rain could fall before the weekend. In Mpumalanga, […]

AN Angolan army helicopter which crashed at the weekend killing 30 people was loaded far beyond its 24-seat capacity, witnesses said on Tuesday. According to witnesses, the Russian-built Mil-8 transport aircraft was carrying 37 people and two pigs when it took off on Saturday from the highland city of Lubango, 650km south of the capital […]

MEMBERSHIP of political parties has decreased significantly since 1994 according to a survey by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in Pretoria. The slip is even more evident among African respondents where active membership of political parties decreased from its high of 24% in 1994, to 10% in 1999. In the same period active membership […]

BREYTON Paulse will play fullback for the Stormers in a frendly against South Western Districts on Wednesday evening. Paulse, who scored one of the most exciting tries in last year’s World Cup during the Springbok’s win over New Zealand in the third-place play-off, has a large following who would rather see him in the number […]

ANGLO American Platinum Corporation (Amplats) said that the National Union of Metal Workers of SA (Numsa) has informed it that the union will suspend strike action at Rustenburg Base Metals Refiners (RBMR). “We have been told by Numsa that they are going to suspend their strike pending further negotiations and that they will urge their […]

NORWEGIAN Prime Minister Kjell Mange Bondevik is due in South Africa on Thursday on the second leg of a three-nation tour of Africa. The prime minister, on his first official visit to South Africa, is scheduled to meet President Thabo Mbeki for bilateral talks on Friday, embassy and government officials said. Bondevik, accompanied by a […]