OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 10.00pm. DEMOCRATIC Republic of Congo rebels on Wednesday said they killed at least 50 Rwandan Hutu and Mai-Mai fighters when rebel troops attempted to cut the road outside rebel headquarters in Goma. Lunda Bululu, one of rebel leaders, said the road was opened after a two-hour gunbattle, and soldiers on […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 10.30pm NIGERIA’S military ruler, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, left Britain on Wednesday confident that his political reform programme will soon lead to the removal of sanctions against his country by the European Union. The union imposed limited sanctions — including travel restrictions on government officials — in 1995 after late General […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 10.00pm. ANGOLA on Wednesday lifted the month-old suspension banning Unita members from its government. Prime Minister Franca Van-Dunem said the decision had been made after consultations between the government and the provisional leadership set up by Unita dissidents who split from hardline leader Jonas Savimbi earlier this month. President Jos […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday 10.00pm. SPORT and Recreation Minister Steve Tshwete expressed his frustration on Wednesday at a lack of adequate investment in sport in South Africa. Introducing debate on the National Sport and Recreation Bill, he congratulated the country’s Commonwealth Games team, as well as its management and coaches, on a performance […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Tuesday 3.30pm. THE Mpumalanga government on Tuesday ordered disgraced provincial parks board chief Alan Gray to resign, and fired the entire board of the Mpumalanga Parks Board. Gray, who reportedly accepted the order on Tuesday morning, has however been promised a sizeable severance package and will not be subjected to a […]

MICHAEL METELITS, Johannesburg | Tuesday 6.00pm. DESPITE the release Tuesday of domestic consumer price information from Statistics South Africa, formerly the Central Statistical Service, international trends again dominated the JSE and other local markets. Those trends were positive, as a number of markets bounced back from Monday’s carnage. The CPI 12-month rate was 7,6%, which […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday 9.30pm. FORMER apartheid security policemen planned to shackle South African Communist Party leader Joe Slovo to a steel ring in a basement on a farm outside Pretoria, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission amnesty committe heard on Tuesday. Craig Willaimson, a former apartheid spy who has applied for amnesty for his […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 4.00pm. THE military intervention in Lesotho is meant to help a lasting political solution, and not to impose a military solution, acting President Mangosutho Buthelezi told Parliament on Tuesday. “The aim of the intervention is to restore stability as quickly as possible and to withdraw from the Kingdom of Lesotho […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 4.00pm. THE incidence of ethnic murder is rising in northwest Rwanda and is stoking conflict in the volatile Democratic Republic of Congo, human rights organisation African Rights said on Tuesday. The organisation warned that the ethnic killings could destabilise the region, and that conflict in the DRC, led by Tutsi […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 11.00am. PUNDITS expect South African junior flyweight Hawk Makepula to be South Africa’s first professional boxer to take a championship on the hallowed ground of New York’s Madison Square Gardens, on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning SA time). Makepula will be fighting Rafael Torres of the Dominican Republic for the World […]