THURSDAY, 10.00PM: BONGANI MAGUBANE, a 36-year-old deputy school principal from Sahlumbe, KwaZulu-Natal, has died after allegedly being assaulted with a wheel spanner during an argument with police task force members near the Mooi River toll plaza on Monday afternoon. According to his brother, Themba Magubane, Bongani was travelling from Durban to Ladysmith when there was […]

THURSDAY, 11.00AM: THE wildcat strike by Johannesburg International Airport baggage handlers has been called off after worker representatives, Apron Services and The Airports Company of South Africa agreed on Wednesday night that tenders will be invited for the airport’s ramp-handling operations. The strike, which disrupted many flights, started early on Wednesday morning when baggage handlers […]

WEDNESDAY, 9.30AM: FORMER Bophuthatswana president Lucas Mangope was on Tuesday found guilty on some 90 charges of fraud and theft totalling R2,8-million, most of which was stolen from his own Bahurutshe-Bo-Manyane tribe. Judge Tom Mullins will deliver judgment on the remaining 89 fraud and theft charges, totalling about R18-million, on Wednesday. Mangope has been found […]

TUESDAY, 9.00AM: FORMER Bophuthatswana president Lucas Mangope, on trial on multiple counts of fraud and theft totalling over R18-million, was told in the Mmabatho High Court on Monday that he has been an unsatisfactory witness who gave “irrelevant, repetitive and extremely evasive evidence”, and who at times told outright lies that did his credibility no […]

MONDAY, 9.00PM: THE official record of Parliament will in future be published in four languages, rather than just in English, it has been proposed. Hansard will be published in English and Afrikaans with immediate effect. From the beginning of next year’s session, it will also be produced in one Nguni language, and one Sotho language, […]

MONDAY, 2.00PM: THE future of Correctional Services Minister Sipo Mzimela is currently under discussion in a meeting between President Nelson Mandela, Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Presidential spokesman Parks Mankahlana said: “The three [Mandela, Mbeki and Buthelezi] are eager that any change in government should happen in the least disruptive […]

MONDAY 10.00AM: NOW that the euphoria around President Nelson Mandela’s secret wedding to Graa Machel has died down, questions are being asked as to the wisdom of the official denials that preceded the Saturday ceremony at Mandela’s Houghton, Johannesburg home. The Mail & Guardian two weeks ago reported that the president was to marry on […]

Nicholas Glass made it his mission to find out more about Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick’s top-secret new film- in-progress A Lear jet left Luton for Los Angeles on June 3, carrying the Cruise family back to Los Angeles. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman like England, where photographers mostly leave them alone. But they must […]

William Fotheringham Tour de France When Jan Ullrich effectively won the Tour de France in the second week of racing last year, his performance was so dominating that there were those, notably the five-times winner Bernard Hinault, who hailed the 23-year-old German as the man who would win the Tour into the millennium and beyond. […]

Andy Capostagno Rugby We live in strange times. Through the years of South Africa’s sporting isolation the apex of ambition in this country was to play against the British. The All Blacks provided the sternest rugby challenge, the Australians the same in cricket, but the cradle of both games was Britain and tours to and […]