OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Monday 7.00pm. RUTH First had turned away from active involvement in the African National Congress to concentrate on her academic career at a university in Maputo in Mozambique some time before she was killed by a letter bomb sent by the apartheid security forces, Transport Minister Mac Maharaj said on Monday. […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 5.45pm. THE Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration on Saturday presented Edgars and its two labour unions with a settlement proposal in a bid to end a protracted strike. CCMA spokesman Sithembele Tshwete said that negotiations concluded on Saturday morning with parties preparing to take the proposal to their respective […]

JOE KAUNDA, Luanda | Monday 7.15pm. ANGOLAN police announced last week that all Unita-aligned members of the national police service will be demobilised. This comes after the Angolan parliament two weeks ago passed a resolution to strip rebel leader Jonas Savimbi of his special status. In announcing the demobilisation, National Police commander Fernado dos Santos […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT and AFP, Cape Town | Monday 7.45pm. FINANCE Minister Trevor Manuel on Monday announced a revision of South Africa’s estimated budget deficit for the 1998/1999 financial year to 3,9% of gross domestic product, up from the 3,5% deficit projected in March. Manuel said, however, that the government remains committed to reducing the budget […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT and AFP, Lumbumbashi | Sunday 7.00pm. ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe flew to the Democratic Republic of Congo for a one-day summit on Sunday in the wake of failed peace talks in the Zambian capital Lusaka last week. The summit, to be held in Lumbumbashi, is expected to be attended by leaders of three […]

DENIS BARNETT, Johannesburg | Sunday 7.00pm. SHARP contradictions on Sunday undermined the ANC’s response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s findings that it violated human rights when fighting apartheid, highlighting differences between President Nelson Mandela and his deputy Thabo Mbeki. Mandela backed the report’s findings, saying that nobody could deny that people died in African […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT and AFP, Johannesburg | Sunday 5.00pm. WEST African leaders ended their summit meeting in Nigeria late on Saturday night after failing to to find a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Guinea Bissau. The two-day leaders’ summit of the 16-member Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) had been dominated by the crisis […]

Wonder Hlongwa The growth of loan sharking to a R10- billion business in South African cities has prompted the Department of Trade and Industry to intervene and regulate the business. The proposed regulations, to be published by Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin later this month, will be incorporated in a revision of the […]

In his first column for Smart Money, David Gleason surveys gold and wonders why Barlow sold investment company PGM for so little Is this a good time to buy gold shares? The evidence supporting the view that gold may be on the verge of a better period (not fantastic, you understand, just modestly better than […]

smoke Mungo Soggot The National Intelligence Agency (NIA)destroyed key state documents as late as November 1996, complementing the wholesale destruction of state records undertaken by the previous government from 1990. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC)final report says in a section on South Africa’s gutted archive that the NIA destroyed records from the intelligence services […]