SWAZILAND has declared December 31 and January 3 special Year 2000 (Y2K) bank holidays to help a smooth transition into the new millenium. The two days will not be general public holidays but all banks in the small kingdom of roughly one million people will be closed. Finance minister John Carmichael said on Wednesday people […]

ANDREW MUCHINERIPI, Johannesburg | Thursday 8.00am. KAIZER Chiefs and Orlando Pirates triumphed again in the Castle Premiership on Wednesday to keep the pressure on pacesetters Sundowns at the top of the standings. The Amakhosi squeezed past stubborn Wits University 1-0 at Johannesburg Stadium and the Buccaneers defeated Jomo Cosmos 3-1 at Vosloorus Stadium as the […]

ABOUT 13000 people have been employed by small, medium and micro enterprises working on the construction of the R2-billion Maputo Corridor toll road since last year. A survey last month by Silulu Investment Services to gauge the success of the programme, found that 70% of the some 300 SMMEs on the N4 were based in […]

SOUTH Africa’s border gates with Mozambique and Swaziland will remain open an extra two hours over the festive season in an attempt to cope with the expected flood of holiday-makers. The Department of Home Affairs said on Wednesday it expects at least 250_ 000 vehicles to travel to through the border gates during December. An […]

FIFTEEN people were killed when a five-storey building collapsed overnight in Fez in central Morocco, local authorities said in issuing a new provisional death toll on Wednesday. Another 37 were injured, including three seriously. Workers are still searching for further victims as well as for survivors. Cracks had recently appeared in the facade of the […]

TWO people were injured in a chemical explosion at a city centre satellite campus of Pretoria Technikon on Monday. Technikon spokeswoman Willa de Ruyter identified the two as Trevor Haug, 40, and Samuel Monageng, 35 — both technikon employees. She said the men were moving chemicals at the technikon’s natural sciences campus in Vermeulen Street […]

ANDREW MUCHINERIPI, Durban | Wednesday 7.00am. Manning Rangers …. (0) 0 Free State Stars … (1) 1 (Tsiu 45) SO there is room in South African soccer for fairytales after all as Free State Stars reached the Rothmans Cup final on Tuesday night against all the odds. Few gave the QwaQwa-based club much hope after […]

BRONWEN ROBERTS, Johannesburg | Wednesday 12.45pm. FORMER Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, wanted by Addis Ababa on charges of genocide, left South Africa before a formal request for his extradition had been received, a presidential aide said on Wednesday. Mengistu travelled to South Africa last month from his home in exile in Zimbabwe for heart […]

COMMUNICATIONS Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri said on Monday she will block the awarding of a third cellular licence if evidence of bid tampering comes to light. But Matsepe-Casaburri added that despite two probes over allegations of corruption in the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Satra), the evaluation of bids for the lucrative licence is on schedule. […]

A NORTHERN Province Zionist priest allegedly castrated a five-year-old boy while the child was still alive. Jan Skosana, 33, of Winterveldt in the North-West Province, made a brief appearance on a murder charge in the Mankweng Magistrate’s Court on Monday. Skosana was arrested on Sunday, allegedly with the genitals in a plastic bag, when security […]