IN BRIEF BANDA’S DEAD, BUT ON TRIAL FORMER Malawian President Hastings Banda died in November — but he is still facing fraud charges. Malawi’s Supreme Court is to hear a state appeal next week against the dismissal of fraud charges against Banda, accused last year of theft of $10-million of funds from a public trust […]

WEDNESDAY, 6.OOPM THE Zimbabwe air force says it will patrol the Limpopo River frontier with helicopter patrols, following the deaths of 36 people attempting to swim the river to South Africa last weekend (see below). WEDNESDAY, 2.OOPM TWENTY NINE members of a Zimbabwe sect followed the words of a “prophet” and swam in to the […]

WEDNESDAY, 12.30PM: SOUTH Africa’s under 19 World Cup squad on Tuesday beat Kenya by 80 runs in a polished performance at the Soweto Oval. South Africa scored 283/8 after being asked to bat. The mainstay of the South African innings, Jon Kent, scored an impressive 102 off 129 balls in an innings which included nine […]

FIRST NATIONAL BANK, banker to seven of the nine provinces, is collecting interest on R2-billion in overdrafts, the Business Day reported on Wednesday. The debt is probably at the prime overdraft rate of 19,25%, considerably more than the usual rate for government borrowing, which is below 14%. KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, currently defaulting on […]

WEDNESDAY, 3.00PM: SOME 300 school children, all of them aged under 12, rioted in Harare on Tuesday, vandalising a bar belonging to a local MP when they discovered that their school had been turned into a high school without their knowledge. The pupils of Glenview Primary School arrived for the first day of term on […]

WEDNESDAY, 5.30PM: The JSE all share index ended near the day’s highs, encouraged by a stronger rand and gold price. Upward movements on the Dow Jones and Hang Send indices, ending on 7 723,13 on Tuesday and at 9 226,55 on Wednesday respectively were supportive. At the close the financial index was up 256,1 points […]

WEDNESDAY, 12.30PM: CAPE TOWN Spurs, so brilliant at the weekend against Chiefs, disappointed in a dull goalless draw against AmaZulu at the Kings Park soccer stadium in Durban on Tuesday evening. Spurs played unimaginative football, and were hardly a shadow of the side that steamrollered Kaizer Chiefs 4-2 at the weekend. Meanwhile Chiefs spokesperson Louis […]

WEDNESDAY 3.30PM: A BORDER row has flared between Botswana troops and Namibian villagers living on a group of disputed islands in the south east Caprivi. Botswanan soldiers erected military camps on one island last month, and have been accused of harassing the villagers and seizing their crops. Now the soldiers are threatening to build more […]

TUESDAY, 11.30AM: SHAREHOLDERS in Gold Fields of SA, Gencor, Oryx, Beatrix, New Wits and Kloof threw their support behind the scheme of arrangement for Goldco on Tuesday. Alan Wright, the proposed deputy chairman of Goldco said the more than 90% of shareholders in support of the new company demonstrated massive confidence in Goldco. However, markets […]

WEDNESDAY 8.30AM: THE school year began in four provinces on Tuesday, with primary schools turning away Grade 1 pupils who failed to register on time, or whose parents were attempting to register them in schools outside their home districts. But while schools in mainly white suburbs were overcrowded, principals of township schools reported a large […]