OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 11.00am. DESPITE a bad start, South African middleweight champion Giovanni Pretorius won on points on Tuesday night in his eight-round bout against Russian Roman “Rauf” Babaev, at the Carousel north of Pretoria. The Russian came out well prepared in the first round, landing a heavy left-right-left combination early on, and […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 7.30pm. LOCAL shares were lifted off their lows by some last minute unit trust buying today, but overall market sentiment was dragged down by disappointment over the direction of US markets. At the close, the JSE’s all-share index had lost 1.84%, the industrial index had fallen 1.65%, the financial index […]

SHARRON HAMMOND and STAFF WRITER, Nelspruit | Tuesday 7.45pm. MEMBER countries of the Southern Africa Development Community are planning to drop their international borders and unite to form one region within the next 30 years, department of home affairs chief migration officer Patrick Matlou said on Tuesday. Addressing a public hearing in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga, on […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 11.30am. ATHLETICS South Africa general secretary Banele Sindani said on Tuesday that South Africa’s Commonwealth Games athletics victories will mark a sea change in the relationship between athletes and administrators. “We have reached a turning point in South African athletics after the medals we won at the Games and the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 10.00am. THE government is making a push for low-cost housing rental in a bill that abolishes rent control and sets up a host of housing rental tribunals. The Housing Rental Bill, published this month for comment, argues that there is a general agreement that rent control curtails investment. The abolition […]

SARAH BULLEN, Johannesburg | Tuesday 5.45pm. LOCAL stock had a disappointing day on Tuesday, closing flat despite expectation that the latest bull run will roll on into the week. Dealers said the pullback was surprising, as all major indices except gold ended in negative territory. Markets were influenced by a both international and domestic factors, […]

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, 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 […]

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 […]