OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 10.45am. GOVERNMENT has facilitated the delivery of some 600000 low-cost houses since 1994, a move which is starting to get South Africans housed “in earnest”, Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele said on Tuesday night. Speaking at a Gauteng housing awards dinner, Mthembi-Mahanyele called for even more innovation in building homes for […]

MIKE METELITS, Johannesburg | Wednesday 6.00pm. SOUTH African markets held onto early gains on Wednesday as world markets rose and sentiment turned positive. The possibility of Japanese debt restructuring and global interest rate cuts cheered Asian and US markets. The rand strengthened to below the R5,90 mark as the dollar weakened against the mark and […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 2.30pm. SEVERAL thousand Iscor workers who downed tools on Wednesday morning in protest at a management bonus returned to work by midday. It is thought the unions involved have instead chosen a legal route to resolve the dispute. The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, National Union of Mineworkers, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 4.30pm. ZIMBABWE went to lunch on 81/1 on the first day of their one-off Test match against the touring Indian team in Harare on Wednesday. The Zimbabweans were sent in to bat on a lively wicket by Indian skipper Mohammed Azharuddin, and started well against the Indian bowling, who struggled […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday 10.00pm. JUSTICE Minister Dullah Omar has dismissed newspaper reports that said he doubted that it was appropriate for a judge to remain at the head of the Heath Special Investigative Unit. Judge Willem Heath, interviewed on SABC TV, said that it had come as a surprise “that the Minister […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday 9.30pm. A KEY witness in the Bronkhorstspruit heist trial has described how he was shot three times by one of the robbers, and has identified the man who shot him. Fifteen men are on trial in the Pretoria High Court for the daring heist, noted for the military precision with […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Windhoek | Wednesday 10.00pm. THE Namibian government has introduced a bill to parliament to alter the constitution to allow President Sam Njoma a third term in office. Controversy has surrounded the mooted legislation. Prime Minister Hage Geingob, introducing the Namibian Constitution Amendment Bill to the national Assembly on Wednesday, was greeted by a […]

SARAH BULLEN, Johannesburg | Tuesday 5.00pm. THE Johannesburg Stock Exchange appeared to have come out of a long winter on Tuesday as positive sentiment from Monday spilled through into the markets. Dealers said the market was firm across the board, largely as a result of a growing outlook that the worst of the domestic economic […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday 9.00pm. THE National Council of Provinces has approved Health Minister Nkosazana Zuma’s tobacco bill which bans tobacco advertising and smoking in the workplace. ”Just as surely as smoking causes cancer, so does the industry target our children and the youth,” Zuma said while urging the NCOP to approve the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday 9.30pm. A 19-year-old SBV security guard who survived the 1997 Bronkhorstspruit cash in transit heist, on Monday told the Pretoria High Court that he had to receive psychiatric treatment after seeing the mutilated bodies of two colleagues who were shot in the head at close range by the ambushers. A […]