OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday 6.45pm. THE South African hitsquad en route to plant a bomb in the African National Congress offices in London ran into numerous predicaments that almost blew the entire operation, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard in Pretoria on Tuesday. Former Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock told the amnesty hearing that […]

SARAH BULLEN, Johannesburg | Tuesday 5.45pm. LOCAL stock had a disappointing day on Tuesday, closing flat despite expectation that the latest bull run will roll on into the week. Dealers said the pullback was surprising, as all major indices except gold ended in negative territory. Markets were influenced by a both international and domestic factors, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kampala | Tuesday 7.30pm. A SMALL aircraft carrying civilians and a top Ugandan army officer to a town controlled by rebels in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has gone missing, a Ugandan army spokesperson said on Tuesday. Captain Shaban Bantariza said the aircraft, chartered from Tropical Airways, left Entebbe for Bunia, about 370km […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 10.15pm. A NATIONWIDE strike by retail group Edgars workers moved into the second on Tuesday, with an increasing number of branches being forced to close their doors as the strike gathered momentum. By Tuesday afternoon the group had closed 11 branches and subsidiaries. The workers demand that management lift a […]

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Monday 6.00pm. THE town council of Ekangala, Mpumalanga, has been ordered to take disciplinary action against the chairman of its housing committee and a senior housing official, after they illegally issued promissory notes worth R78-million. The African National Congress also announced a review of councillor Jacob Masango’s role in the scheme. […]

SHARRON HAMMOND, Nelspruit | Tuesday 8.00pm. MPUMALANGA’S suspended parks chief, Alan Gray, refused to answer written questions about his business dealings with government or government contractors on Tuesday and instead threatened to sue reporters. Gray said in a lawyer’s letter that elements within the media were conducting personal crusades and vendettas against him and had […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Monday, 10.30pm. COMMONWEALTH silver medallist Brendon Dedekind held out against strong-finishing Roland Schoeman to win the men’s 100m freestyle Monday, posting his fourth African record of the Telkom SA short course championships in Cape Town. Deaf Durbanite Terence Parkin annihilated his personal best time to set a continental mark in […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Nairobi | Tuesday 11.00pm. THE trial of a retired Kenyan Wildlife Services officer, Simon Ole Makallah, opened in Nairobi on Tuesday, 10 years after the murder of British tourist Julie Ward in the Masai Mara Game Reserve in south-western Kenya. Makallah, 48, is charged with killing Ward, 28, who disappeared from from her […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maseru | Tuesday 9.45pm. THE streets of Maseru were packed on Tuesday as scores of people flooded into the Lesotho capital to do their banking and survey the damage caused by vandals during the invasion of Southern African Development Community troops. Activity in the devastated country appeared to return to normal as magistrates’ […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday 11.00pm. PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela is setting a potentially dangerous precedent in raising funds for cleric Alan Boesak’s legal fees, Pan Africanist Congress spokeswoman Patricia de Lille told SABC3 on Tuesday. Earlier both the Democratic Party and the National Party had criticised the move, saying that Mandela’s personal involvement in […]