OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kisangani | Tuesday 11.00pm. WITH five attempts at peace mediation now failed, the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo is spreading to pull in countries throughout the region. Sudan has sent 2,000 soldiers to bolster DRC President Laurent Kabila’s forces in the forward military headquarters of Kindu in eastern DRC, according to […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 11.00pm. CONTROVERSIAL foreign affairs official Robert McBride has accused South African police of deliberately misleading their Mozambican counterparts to ensure he was charged for gun-running, leading to his imprisonment for six months in Maputo. McBride said he has approached the Independent Complaints Directorate to lodge a complaint against the SA […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Grand Baie | Monday 10.00pm. RWANDAN and Ugandan delegates were reportedly refused permission to attend a closed door meeting of South African Development Community members in the Mauritian resort of Grand Baie on Monday. The two countries are not members of the 14-nation SADC. A Democratic Republic of Congo official said the DRC […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Nairobi | Monday 9.15pm. TENSION is rising in Kenya over the government’s decision last week to shut down five Moslem non-governmental organisations as retaliation for the August bombing of the United States embassy in the capital, Nairobi. Kenyan Muslim organisations are claiming that US pressure led to the ban and that Muslims NGOs […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 9.30am. SHAUN POLLOCK’s cricket team put in a lethargic performance to beat Bangladesh by six wickets after the cricketing minnows posted a paltry 79 all-out. The South African batsmen then lost the plot completely, and were five wickets down before opener Herschelle Gibbs steadied the ship. The South Africans will […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maputo | Monday 1.00pm. FOREIGN affairs official Robert McBride, who has been detained in Mozambique since March on gunrunning and espionage charges, was provisionally released from jail on Monday. Speaking shortly after her husband’s release, Paula McBride said: “We’re extremely tired, and I can’t wait to take him home.” The couple will return […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maputo | Monday 1.00pm. FOREIGN affairs official Robert McBride, arriving back in South Africa after being freed from detention in Mozambique on Monday, says he was falsely implicated on charges of gun running in Mozambique and that he knows who set him up. Speaking at a media conference at Johannesburg airport, McBride said […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Sunday 8.30PM. A HISTORIC deal has been signed to facilitate the redevelopment of Cape Town’s District Six, razed by the apartheid government in the 1960s. The agreement will pave the way for more than 45000 people, forcibly removed from their land and relocated on the barren Cape Flats under the […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Sunday 7.00PM. MPUMALANGA’S embattled parks chief, Alan Gray, lost a last-ditch bid to save his career on Friday despite a flurry of legal letters and frantic behind-the-scenes lobbying. The Mpumalanga Parks Board recommended that Gray be suspended immediately pending the outcome of a discliplinary hearing into his handling of a series […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 4.30pm. BOTH the rebel commander Jean-Pierre Ondekane and Rwandan Vice President Paul Kagame claimed that Monday morning’s failed attack on the rebel stronghold of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo was carried out by Rwandan Hutu Interhamwe militias. The Interhamwe were responsible for the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 […]