THURSDAY, 8.30AM: ZAMBIA’S President Frederick Chiluba has seized upon Tuesday’s bungled coup attempt to announce a state of emergency which gives security forces sweeping powers of arrest and detention. The emergency will be reviewed in seven days by parliament, which is dominated by Chiluba’s party. States of emergency have been common in Zambia — former […]

THURSDAY, 4.30PM LABOUR Minister Tito Mboweni, speaking to ANC youth members on Thursday, said employers who claimed that the Basic Conditions of Employment Bill discouraged job creation were wrong. ”The Bill is intended to protect workers, to ensure that they have fair conditions of employment befitting a human being.” He said the country’s massive unemployment […]

THURSDAY, 5.30PM: A DISGRUNTLED Unita rebel leader said on Thursday that the United Nations’ decision to impose sanctions on the movement (see below) is proof of the UN’s failure. ”The UN has thus admitted that it was incapable of bringing peace to Angola,” said Horacio Njunjuvili, a member of Unita’s delegation to the inter-Angolan peace […]

TUESDAY, 11.00AM: Reserve Bank governor Chris Stals says there is not much the central bank or the government can do to protect South Africa from developments on international markets. Stals was speaking in Somerset West this morning, at the South African Chamber of Commerce (Sacob) annual conference. “Once we have gone through this, maybe we […]

WEDNESDAY, 10.00AM THE Motheo Construction company got praised on Tuesday before the Commission of Enquiry into the Mpumalanga rural housing fiasco. Former Nedcor credit manager, Kevin Gibb, testified Motheo still has one of the best formulas for the speedy delivery of low cost housing in South Africa. He said Motheo is blameless, and was used […]

WEDNESDAY, 5.30PM A FORMER police spy, John Horak, has claimed more than half a million rand from the government and the Sanlam insurance company for failing to pay his disability benefits. But his court bid today was postponed because his state insurance policy was so secret that he was never told the details himself. Horak […]

‘VICTIMISED’ BY TRC THE Truth Commission’s investigative head Dumisa Ntsebeza has accused the commission of victimising him. Ntsebeza’s lawyer accused the TRC’s amnesty committee on Wednesday of relying on conflicting statements by a single witness to implicate Ntsebeza in the 1993 Heidelberg Tavern bombing. “Unless there is victimisation of my client or incompetence … I […]

WEDNESDAY, 11.00AM: SOUTH AFRICAN all-rounder Brian McMillan is on his way back home and will miss the quadrangular one-day cricket tournament at the Gaddafi Stadium in Pakistan on Friday. McMillan said he is going home because he has a business to take care of at home. “Unfortunately something urgent has cropped up and the tour […]

WEDNESDAY, 5.30PM STOCKS made a recovery on the JSE on Wednesday, but managed to claw back only around half of yesterday’s record losses. The all share index closed 385 points stronger on 6392. The gold index climbed 16 points to end the day at 877, the industrial index finished 499 points up on 7932 and […]

WEDNESDAY, 11.00AM: CORRECTIONAL services national commissioner Dr Khulekani Sitole says that the only way to ease massive overcrowding in the nation’s prisons may be to release about 45 000 petty criminals. He said while such a step could cause friction between the department, the rest of the criminal justice system, and the general public, the […]