President Nelson Mandela is to meet the chairman of the Congolese Democratic Coalition, Ernest Wamba dia Wamba.

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Luanda | Tuesday 5.30pm. ANGOLA’S National Assembly on Tuesday opened debate on a ruling party motion to strip the “special status” accorded to discredited Unita leader Jonas Savimbi. The ruling MPLA wants to divest Savimbi as “leader of the main opposition” with the right to a 400-strong bodyguard, for his failure to respect […]

DAVID LE PAGE, Johannesburg | Tuesday 6.00pm. THE Johannesburg Stock Exchange climbed nearly 2% on Tuesday, helped by a steadily falling yield on the R150, well below 16% at 4pm, and a steady rand-dollar exchange rate. According to Quintus Kilburn of Barnard Jacobs Mellet, the steadiness of the European bourses — now fueled by a […]

LANSANA FOFANA, Freetown | Tuesday 6.00pm. SIERRA Leone’s rebel leader Foday Sankoh, who was sentenced to death last week for his part in a coup which briefly overthrew the elected government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, has failed to persuade the court to spare his life. Begging Judge Samuel Ademusu, Sankoh, who is believed to […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 1.00pm. GRIQUALAND West and former South African cricket skipper Kepler Wessels led his side to a stunning 30-run Standard Bank league victory over home favourites Gauteng at the Wanderers on Friday night. Wessels topped the boards with a polished 76 and his effort helped the diamond farmers to score 200/6 […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, London | Monday 10.00pm. FIFA president Sepp Blatter dealt a blow to England’s chances of staging the 2006 World Cup on Monday when he emerged from a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to say it would be “logical” for the tournament to be held in Africa. Blatter said after a 45-minute […]

MIKE METELITS, Johannesburg | Friday 6.00pm. LOCAL markets continued to weaken on Friday as Asian markets were sharply split and European and US markets continued a downward trend. The Nikkei lost 150 points and the Hang Seng gained 150, while European markets were down by varying degrees. The FTSE-100 was down 58 points at 15:48 […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Dakar | Monday 8.00pm. BISSAU, quiet after a week of heavy fighting, braced itself for the first meeting, set for early Tuesday, between President Joao Bernardo Vieira and his rival General Ansumane Mane. However the venue for the meeting, seen as essential to ending the four-month-old conflict in Guinea-Bissau, remained at issue on […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Monday 10.00am. OFFICERS of the West African intervention force Ecomog are preventing it from wiping out the forces of Sierra Leonean rebel Johnny Paul Koroma because of links to the diamond trade, soldiers alleged on Monday. Nigerian Ecomog soldiers on medical leave in Lagos said that some of their officers in […]