Mark Tran in New York Banc One, one of the United States’s top regional banks, this week vaulted into the top tier of US credit card companies by announcing the acquisition of First USA for $7,5-billion. The deal will make Banc One the third biggest credit card issuer behind Citicorp and MBNA with $33-billion in […]

`I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player at 20 have so much’ – Bobby Robson on Barcelona’s boy wonder Ronaldo, who this week was named world player of 1996 SOCCER: Christopher Clarey RONALDO may or may not be the next Pele, Diego Maradona or Marco van Basten. How can anyone know for certain what […]

Ann Eveleth ESTCOURT health officials are investigating the circumstances behind the bizarre overnight consignment of large quantities of meat, eggs, milk and other perishable foodstuffs destined for Estcourt Hospital to a local mortuary this week. Regional health services director Thoko Mtshali visited the hospital on Wednesday to open the investigation. She said staff were disgusted […]

Max Gebhardt FEARS are growing that South African Breweries (SAB) may have to offload troubled retail subsidiary OK Bazaars after years spent trying to turn the operation around. The group, whose interests also include beer, windscreens and men’s clothing, attempted this week to scotch growing market speculation that the OK is flying a For Sale […]

Jim Day The bar in what used to be the Quirinale Hotel, with its zebra-striped walls and languidly spinning fans, lies quiet and empty. Gone are the hotel’s notorious days of pulsing musical acts that played on the elevated stage, the chance of picking up a prostitute, scoring some coke or rubbing shoulders with agents […]

THE government’s efforts to curtail the activities of Executive Outcomes (EO) – the South African company which appears to be running a booming business in the export of mercenaries and ancillary services – are understandable, but should perhaps be the subject of more public debate before legislation is passed. There are a number of reasons […]

Stefaans Brmmer DEFENCE Secretary Pierre Steyn came under intense pressure from the defence establishment after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s public release of details from the “third force” report which Steyn made in 1992. After the truth commission bombshell last week, vultures gathered to pick De Klerk’s political bones – how else could it be […]

John Daniszewski in Cairo SUDANESE rebels claimed this week to have killed hundreds of government troops and pushed to within 65km of a key hydroelectric dam in a mushrooming military campaign to topple Sudan’s Islamic government, long criticised internationally as a sponsor of global terrorism. The offensive that began two weeks ago has spread quickly […]

Israel’s political storms have put radical economic changes on the back burner, writes Alex Brummer ISRAEL’S economy appears intent on mimicking the Italian model. Despite political assassination, terrorist bombings and reprisals, a soldier running amok on the West Bank and a government, under Binyamin Netanyahu, apparently determined to win prizes for impetuousness and incompetence, the […]

Executive Outcomes is the world’s first corporate army and – some argue – an effective peacekeeping force, report Khareen Pech and David Beresford EXECUTIVE OUTCOMES has fought many gun battles in Africa. Today the controversial company, having brought new meaning to the concept of the “corporate state” by mustering what is arguably the world’s first […]