OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday 6.45pm. THE South African hitsquad en route to plant a bomb in the African National Congress offices in London ran into numerous predicaments that almost blew the entire operation, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard in Pretoria on Tuesday. Former Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock told the amnesty hearing that […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Nairobi | Tuesday 11.00pm. THE trial of a retired Kenyan Wildlife Services officer, Simon Ole Makallah, opened in Nairobi on Tuesday, 10 years after the murder of British tourist Julie Ward in the Masai Mara Game Reserve in south-western Kenya. Makallah, 48, is charged with killing Ward, 28, who disappeared from from her […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Freetown | Tuesday 11.00pm. THE Sierra Leone government announced on Tuesday that it had foiled a jailbreak plot that would have led to the release of dozens of collaborators of the ousted military junta who are being tried for various offences. Attorney General and Minister of Justice Solomon Berewah told reporters in Freetown […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kampala | Tuesday 7.30pm. A SMALL aircraft carrying civilians and a top Ugandan army officer to a town controlled by rebels in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has gone missing, a Ugandan army spokesperson said on Tuesday. Captain Shaban Bantariza said the aircraft, chartered from Tropical Airways, left Entebbe for Bunia, about 370km […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 8.30pm. THE strike by employees belonging to the South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union on Monday forced the Edgars group to close certain operations, including shops in the Johannesburg CBD. Workers toyi-toyied outside shops, and several scuffles with police ensued, resulting in four workers being injutred and 10 […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Monday, 10.30pm. COMMONWEALTH silver medallist Brendon Dedekind held out against strong-finishing Roland Schoeman to win the men’s 100m freestyle Monday, posting his fourth African record of the Telkom SA short course championships in Cape Town. Deaf Durbanite Terence Parkin annihilated his personal best time to set a continental mark in […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Monday 6.00pm. THE town council of Ekangala, Mpumalanga, has been ordered to take disciplinary action against the chairman of its housing committee and a senior housing official, after they illegally issued promissory notes worth R78-million. The African National Congress also announced a review of councillor Jacob Masango’s role in the scheme. […]

SHARRON HAMMOND, Nelspruit | Tuesday 8.00pm. MPUMALANGA’S suspended parks chief, Alan Gray, refused to answer written questions about his business dealings with government or government contractors on Tuesday and instead threatened to sue reporters. Gray said in a lawyer’s letter that elements within the media were conducting personal crusades and vendettas against him and had […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Monday 7.00pm. APARTHEID security police killed Ruth First because they were unable to catch SA Communist Party leader Joe Slovo, Gillian Slovo told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s amnesty committee on Monday. Gillian Slovo, along with her sisters Robyn and Shaun, is opposing the applications for amnesty by apartheid agents Craig […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 10.15pm. A NATIONWIDE strike by retail group Edgars workers moved into the second on Tuesday, with an increasing number of branches being forced to close their doors as the strike gathered momentum. By Tuesday afternoon the group had closed 11 branches and subsidiaries. The workers demand that management lift a […]