EMPLOYMENT BILL FINALLY PASSED The Basic Conditions of Employment Bill finally passed through the National Council of Provinces on Wednesday, despite National Party attempts to block it with 20 last-minute amendments. Debates on the amdendments delayed the bill by just 24 hours. The defeated amendments aimed to limit the labour minister’s powers and slow a […]

WEDNESDAY, 9.40AM: HANSIE Cronje and his charges are set to receive more than they received in Pakistan for the tour of Australia. The squad leaves on Thursday for a 10 week tour of Australia. “If the players get to the finals they will get R150 000 to share between them,” said the United Cricket Board […]

TUESDAY 11.30AM: A STALLHOLDER at the Fresh Produce Market in Pretoria has discovered cardboard boxes among the stalls, containing 75 matric biology exam papers. The education department seals on the box have been broken. Police are investigating the discovery, but education department officials — embarrassed by yet another exam fraud discovery — say the papers […]

TUESDAY, 1:00PM: The Mozambique government declared a public health emergency late on Monday in the face of a cholera epidemic that has claimed 120 lives, mostly in Maputo, over the past two months. An international health team organised by Medecins Sans Frontieres arrived on Monday with an emergency airlift of medicines and equipment to fight […]

TUESDAY, 10:00AM: The National Council of Provinces has three days to approve or reject 30 crucial Bills this week affecting housing, health, justice and education. Most have already been approved by the National Assembly. Among the Bills the NCoP will be whipping through are the Health Department’s three controversial measures on parallel imports of prescription […]

TUESDAY, 5:00PM: Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano told an investment summit on Tuesday that Southern African countries should guard against competing among themselves to attract investment. Presenting the keynote speech at the International Herald Tribune Southern African trade and investment summit in Gaborone, Botswana, he said such competition would be counter-productive, whereas the emergence of Southern […]

TUESDAY, 8.45AM: NICK Mallett is likely to name Werner Swanepoel as the replacement for injured Springbok scrumhalf Joost van der Westhuizen, who returned home to South Africa on crutches on Monday. Swanepoel has been an understudy of Van der Westhuizen for some time now. Swanepoel played three Test matches this season — as a replacement […]

TUESDAY, 6.15PM: THE JSE had a lacklustre day, in which only R802-m worth of shares was traded. Rises in Tokyo coupled with losses in Hong Kong led to a directionless local market. At the close of trade the all share index was 8,8 points lower at 6 419, the all gold index had lost 2,1 […]

TUESDAY, 9.15AM: MINERALS and energy officials, instructed by minister Pennuel Maduna to investigate the appointment of a mysterious Liberian consultant to the Central Energy Fund, will make a decision by the year’s end. But the man whose job is most on the line is the non-executive chairman of the fund, Don Mkhwanazi, who made the […]

TUESDAY, 10.00AM: ZIMBABWE’S Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa says a programme to find Z$5 billion to pay war pensions to former guerrillas has been put to an International Monetary Fund team visiting the country. A high-powered IMF delegation to Zimbabwe wants the Mugabe government to provide a plan for paying off the guerrillas — whose militancy […]