LEONARD NDZHUKULA, Nelspruit | Thursday 10.00pm. THE African National Congress in Mpumalanga on Thursday strongly denied a Nelspruit newspaper report that accused Premier Mathews Phosa of being involved in secret business deals with Alan Gray, suspended chief executive officer of the Mpumalanga Parks Board. It also denied reports in the Mpumalanga News that Phosa was […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 7.00pm. THREE Swiss women tourists leaving the Umfolozi game reserve on Wednesday afternoon were attacked and abducted by five men, and two of them gang-raped. According to KwaZulu-Natal police spokesman, the women, travelling in a hired car, were fired upon 200m from the gate of the reserve around 3pm, forcing […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 9.00pm. POLICE on Thursday revealed evidence that crime in Johannesburg is being reduced and the police force becoming more effective. Nationally, the numbers of cash-in-transit heists and bank robberies dropped nearly 50% in the period January to July 1998 from the same period in 1997. Cash heists were down 57,8% […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Wednesday 9.30pm. ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe, who returned home from the Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday, has vowed to continue supporting the DRC’s embattled President Laurent Kabila. The meeting between Mugabe and Kabila in Kabila’s southern stronghold, Lubumbashi, took place hours after the Tutsi-led rebels captured the town of Kindu, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Lagos | Wednesday 12.15pm. THE reformist Nigerian military government of General Abdulsalami Abubakar is searching hard for billions of dollars in public monies stolen by cronies of former ruler General Sani Abacha. Information Minister John Nwodo says the government is busy seeking the assistance of the countries in which the money is being […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 10.15am. SOUTH Africa’s Amanda Coetzer, ranked 13th in women’s world tennis, adavanced to the second round of the European Championships in Zurich on Tuesday when she beat Natascha Zvereva of Belarus 7-5, 6-4 in the first round. Coetzer and her opponent traded serves twice in the first set before the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 10.30am. ITCHINESS for a rates cut from Reserve Bank governor Chris Stals is beginning to increase, now that liquidity in the money market has improved and the rand gained in strength. The repo rate has now been stuck at 21,855% since the beginning of September, due to the Bank’s policy […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 7.45pm. TWO Durban High Court judges on Wednesday said that they made a mistake in co-signing a letter earlier in the year opposing the nomination of Judge Vuka Tshabalala as Natal’s Deputy Judge President. Speaking at Judicial Services Commission in Pretoria, Judge Brian Galgut and Judge Jan Hugo said they […]

SARAH BULLEN, Johannesburg | Wednesday 7.00pm. A PAIR of Tanzanian Siamese twins, joined in an extremely rare manner, arrived in Cape Town on Tuesday where they will be separated at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital. The twins, eight-month-old girls named only as Helen and Agnes, are joined at the pelvis. The twins, however, are facing […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Wednesday 11.00pm. THIRTY-ONE people were involved in the careful planning which led to the R17,4 million Bronkhorstspruit cash-in-transit heist last July, the Pretoria High Court heard on Wednesday. Jerry Mashigo told the court he had known two of the accused, Dennis Nqobezi and Thabo Stimela, for about a year. He met […]