OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 6.00pm. SOUTH Africa recorded a R911-million trade surplus in October compared to a R1,37-billion surplus in September, the country’s customs and exise department said on Tuesday. Analysts forecast a deficit of R700-million. The cumulative surplus for the first 10 months of the year amounted to R13,09-billion compared with R966-million surplus […]

THE BOB WOOLMER COLUMN: AS South Africa and England face up to each other I bet there are some people who are asking the question, what is it really like to play Test cricket and why is there such a big difference between Test matches and the game at other levels?, writes the former national […]

THE office of Public Prosecutor, Bulelani Ngcuka, raided three properties of a 72-year-old grandmother in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban on Friday. The elderly woman is accused of embezzling several million rand from her employer, Mercury Engineering, over five years. The woman was in a retirement home in Simons Town in the Western Cape when […]

HEAVY fighting resumed in the northwestern Equateur Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a rebel spokesman said by telephone on Tuesday. “Since Monday morning there has been very heavy and bloody fighting at Bokungu where we were attacked” by the men of President Laurent Kabila and allied soldiers from Namibia, Zimbabwe and the Interahamwe […]

THE Northern Province’s health department ordered its regional hospitals on Monday to immediately restock rural clinics with condoms after prostitutes in the area complained of shortages. The prostitutes complained that clinics ran out of condoms over a month ago, forcing sex workers to ply their trade on the busy N1 highway to Zimbabwe without any […]

EAST London police fired stun grenades and teargas as they raced a colleague to safety last night in an armoured personnel carrier under a hail of bricks and stones from a 300-strong mob baying for his blood. They were also forced to shut down a satellite police station indefinitely, after enraged Pefferville residents smashed windscreens […]

RENTALS for the more than 3,5-million postboxes in South Africa will increase by an average 10% next year, the Post Office announced on Monday. Albert Michau, senior general manager for financial services, said the rental for a small postbox will increase by R10 to R130 with the rental being payable by January 1 2000, he […]

FORMER captain Alec Stewart is to captain England in their one-day spell against a Gauteng XI in Lenasia on Wednesday. Nottingham’s Chris Read takes over the gloves for the first time on tour. The tourists have rested six of their key players with Darren Maddy expected to open the innings with regular Mark Butcher in […]