OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 4.30pm. WHETHER South African Davis Cup captain Danie Visser will continue to head the team remains undecided after Sunday’s crisis meeting between senior SA tennis officials. Two weeks ago, South Africa suffered a major loss in Prague, threatening Visser’s contract. Sources, however, believe that SA tennis leadership is as much […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 9.30pm. THE Cape Town businessman Vito Palazzolo has been named by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation as being a senior member of the Sicilian mafia group Cosa Nostra. Palazzolo entered South Africa illegally in the 1980s and was given South African citizenship in 1995 in spite of appearing […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 8.45pm. A CAR-HIJACKER, convicted of shooting a man dead and seriously injured his female companion in a hijacking in 1983, applied for amnesty on Monday on the grounds that he had been acting with political motive. Saint Mkhululi Manyamalala, 30, told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he had needed […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Lagos | Monday 9.30pm. THE Anglo-Dutch oil group Shell has evacuated staff from the most volatile parts of the Niger Delta after a previously unknown group threatened the safety of foreign oil workers, Shell officials said on Monday. Armed youths last week seized 15 flow-stations belonging to the oil giant, which is the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, N’djamena | Sunday 9.00pm. The Sudanese government has meanwhile announced that it wants a ceasefire with southern rebels. However it stopped short of agreeing to a truce declared by the rebels a few days ago. The SPLA said on Thursday that it will extend by another three months a cease-fire set to end […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maseru | Sunday 9.00pm. A MAN was beaten to death and four more seriously injured by an enraged crowd at a Lesotho Congress for Democracy rally on Sunday. The rally in Maseru, attended by around 5000 people, had already been scattered by an earlier shooting in which one person was injured. Several people […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kampala | Friday 7.00pm. THE Commonwealth has announced the lifting of santions against Nigeria and a partial return to the fold of the organisation’s most populous member-state. At the end of their two-day conference at the Commonwealth secretariat, members of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (Cmag) said they had reached their decision “in […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Midrand | Sunday 9.00pm. A PRESIDENTIAL summit to discuss farm attacks has ended with all parties in agreement on a 10-point plan to tackle the problem, the Sunday Independent reports. Delegates adopted a resolution committing all parties — government, opposotion parties, labour unions and farmin organisations — to co-operation and mobilisation of their […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT Kisangani | Sunday 9.00pm. THE wreck of an airliner shot down at the weekend by Democratic Republic of Congo rebels has been found about 40km west of the eastern city of Kindu, a Congo Airlines official said on Sunday. “Villagers who found the wreck in the forest found no trace of survivors,” the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kampala | Sunday 9.00pm. THE Ugandan government has confirmed that Ugandan troops now control several airstrips in the easter Democratic Republic of Congo. Regional Cooperation Minister Amama Mbabazi said on Sunday that Uganda was holding the airstrips to prevent Sudan from using them to deliver supplies to Ugandan rebels. “The best achievement has […]