African leaders on Wednesday appointed former South African President Nelson Mandela as the new mediator for Burundi’s fragile peace process.

THE Angolan Central Bank launched a new currency, the kwanza, on Wednesday as part of a monetary reform program to simplify small transactions. “If you want to buy something small, you have to use large packets of readjusted kwanzas,” Aguinaldo Jaime, the central bank governor, said. “That is something we want to correct.” Indeed, the […]

PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday referred the appointment of a new 12-member board for the SABC to Cabinet on Tuesday instead of mooting the choice, fuelling fuelling speculation that he is not satisfied with the candidates. The National Assembly’s communications committee’s recommendations were adopted by all parties in Parliament, except the Democratic Party, which raised […]

MARTIN WOLK, Seattle | Wednesday 3.50pm US President Bill Clinton arrived in Seattle to scenes of devastation early on Wednesday after huge protests in which anti-trade demonstrators battled with police and threw global trade talks into chaos. The streets of this port city were littered with glass and other debris after activists smashed storefront windows, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 3.00pm. NIGERIAN striker Nwankwo Kanu has won the African Footballer of the Year award, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) announced on Wednesday. It is the second time the 23-year-old Arsenal forward has won the award, following his triumph in 1996 when he captained Nigeria’s under-23 team to the Olympic […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 3.00pm. FAST bowler Chris Silverwood seized two wickets in three deliveries when he made his first appearance for England on their tour of South Africa on Wednesday. Silverwood, drafted in recently when paceman Dean Headley returned home early with a stress fracture in his back, helped England to beat a […]

THE mayor of Northam in the Northern Province has died of severe burn wounds after an angry woman torched his vehicle at the weekend, Julius Ramoabi sustained third degree burns on Saturday night after an unnamed woman doused his bakkie with petrol and lit it during an argument. Bushveld police spokesman Captain Blackie Swart said […]

BRONWEN ROBERTS, Pretoria | Tuesday 9.25am THE DEFENCE force acquired a machine that could permanently alter human aggression levels by tampering with the brain, the Pretoria High Court heard on Monday. The claim was made at the murder, drug and fraud trial of scientist Wouter Basson — who headed the past regime’s biochemical warfare programme […]

SASOL, the oil from coal pioneer, said it will improve its bottom line by R300-million for every sustained increase of $1 above the $16 level in the steadily rising derived crude oil price, according to the Business Report. The paper reports the derived crude oil price is now at $19 a barrel. If the derived […]

ROOKIE professional Jean Hugo won his first tournament on Southern African soil when he claimed a two-shot victory in the Vodacom Tour’s Zimbabwe Open at the Chapman Golf Club on Sunday. The win was Hugo’s first in only five tournaments as a professional, and guarantees him an exemption on the Vodacom Tour until 2002. A […]