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 3.30PM: 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 […]

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 […]

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 4.00PM: COURT cases around the country will be delayed from Thursday morning as prosecutors in magistrates courts refuse to work overtime in protest against the justice department’s suspension of overtime pay. And the Society of State Advocates said that advocates in the office of the attorney general in Pretoria will join the overtime ban. […]

TUESDAY, 11.45AM: THE price of white maize futures on the SA Futures Exchange last week continued the slide that began in December following the late start of summer rains. Safex agricultural markets GM Rod Gravel-Blondin said on Monday that maize futures contract prices fell a further R50 last week and, with the exception of December […]

TUESDAY, 3.30PM: JONATHAN OPPENHEIMER will captain the Nicky Oppenheimer XI to face Pakistan in their opening tour match of South Africa, starting January 29. Pakistan’s tour of more than a month will include three Tests against the South African national squad. The opening match of the tour will be played at Oppenheimer’s Randjesfontein Oval, where […]

TUESDAY, 5.30PM: WITHIN seven minutes of opening on Tuesday, the JSE all share index had gained almost 120 points, but subsided somewhat as investors sold into the rally. At the day’s close the financial index was up 208,3 points at 9 550,9 and the industrial index was 142,4 points higher at 6 857,5. The all […]