Staff Reporter

THE office of Public Prosecutor, Bulelani Ngcuka, raided three properties of a 72-year-old grandmother in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban on Friday. The elderly woman is accused of embezzling several million rand from her employer, Mercury Engineering, over five years. The woman was in a retirement home in Simons Town in the Western Cape when […]

SOUTH Africa’s selectors have given Allan Donald a week off prior to the Port Elizabeth Test, starting next Thursday. Donald’s pace bowling, 11 for 127, destroyed England in the first Test at the Wanderers, but the Free Stater was struggling with injury before taking part. The selectors have also withdrawn the KwaZula-Natal trio of Shaun […]

THE Northern Province’s health department ordered its regional hospitals on Monday to immediately restock rural clinics with condoms after prostitutes in the area complained of shortages. The prostitutes complained that clinics ran out of condoms over a month ago, forcing sex workers to ply their trade on the busy N1 highway to Zimbabwe without any […]

SOUTH African maize futures contracts traded mixed on Tuesday, mirroring diverse views in the market on the extent and impact of recent rainfall in key growing areas. “The rains are very late. Although there is still time to plant, farmers are slowly getting concerned,” Giel van Zyl, general manager of the National Maize Producers Organisation […]

RENTALS for the more than 3,5-million postboxes in South Africa will increase by an average 10% next year, the Post Office announced on Monday. Albert Michau, senior general manager for financial services, said the rental for a small postbox will increase by R10 to R130 with the rental being payable by January 1 2000, he […]

MOZAMBICAN President Joaquim Chissano assured foreign investors on Tuesday his country would remain stable even if his ruling Frelimo party lost its parliamentary majority in elections due this week. But he told a southern African investment conference in Maputo that he was still confident his party would strengthen its parliamentary position after the December 3 […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, cape Town | Tuesday 8.30pm. POLICE warned Capetonians on Tuesday to expect more terror attacks following Sunday’s blast at St Elmos pizzeria in Camps Bay, while tourism officials said foreigners had begun cancelling plans to visit the city. Justice Minister Penuell Maduna meanwhile vowed that the culprits of the pipe-bomb explosion which injured […]

BRONWEN ROBERTS, Pretoria | Tuesday 9.25am THE DEFENCE force acquired a machine that could permanently alter human aggression levels by tampering with the brain, the Pretoria High Court heard on Monday. The claim was made at the murder, drug and fraud trial of scientist Wouter Basson — who headed the past regime’s biochemical warfare programme […]

Transport Minister Dullah Omar is hosting a big Aids Awareness Concert at the Johannesburg Park Station on World Aids Day on Wednesday. The event is being organised by the South African Rail Commuter Corporation in conjunction with Intersite. Omar will sign the “Long Life Love Train”, which will be parked at one of the station’s […]

WORLD number one gold producer AngloGold Ltd said on Monday that it bought a substantial portion of the Bank of England’s third bullion auction and used the purchase to unwind part of its hedge. “We did bid at the auction and bought 300000 ounces. We have a large hedge and it suited our purposes to […]

THE National Union Metal Workers declared a dispute against Highveld Steel on Tuesday after 2000 union members were disciplined for protesting against the death of a colleague. Numsa said workers protested about safety standards after a colleague was killed in an explosion at Highveld Steel’s Middelburg plant in Mpumalanga two weeks ago. It said management […]

A NEW draft constitution for Zimbabwe was adopted by a government-appointed commission amid strong objections on Monday, leaving the contentious issue of President Robert Mugabe’s future unresolved. Cries of “No” rang out around the Harare conference centre as the chairman of the 400-member commission, judge Godfrey Chidyausiku, declared the draft adopted by acclamation. The new […]

The Nelson Mandela Museum in the old Transkei parliament buildings in Umtata will be opened on February 11 next year.

PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki and Foreign Minister Nkosazana Zuma will leave for Tanzania on Tuesday to attend a two-day meeting aimed at reviving the peace process in Burundi, presidential spokesman Parks Mankahlana said. The meeting in Arusha is aimed at reviving the peace process in Burundi following the death of Julius Nyerere, the former Tanzanian president […]

THE mayor of Northam in the Northern Province has died of severe burn wounds after an angry woman torched his vehicle at the weekend, Julius Ramoabi sustained third degree burns on Saturday night after an unnamed woman doused his bakkie with petrol and lit it during an argument. Bushveld police spokesman Captain Blackie Swart said […]

ROOKIE professional Jean Hugo won his first tournament on Southern African soil when he claimed a two-shot victory in the Vodacom Tour’s Zimbabwe Open at the Chapman Golf Club on Sunday. The win was Hugo’s first in only five tournaments as a professional, and guarantees him an exemption on the Vodacom Tour until 2002. A […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 9.00pm. SOUTH Africa completed their tenth consecutive home Test win when they beat England by an innings and 21 runs on the fourth day of the first Test at the Wanderers on Sunday. Shaun Pollock took the last two wickets to finish with four for 64. Pollock, with match figures […]

A RELATIVE of King Goodwill Zwelithini was stoned to death near his parent’s palace in Nongoma in northern KwaZulu-Natal on Friday evening, police reported on Saturday. Prince Thokozani Thembenkosi Zulu, 26, was found dead in the Khekani area, about 500 metres from his home, at about 5.30pm after he failed to return home the previous […]

THE price of petrol will fall from midnight on Wednesday, December 1, 1999. The department of mineral and energy affairs said in a statement that petrol will fall by 1 cent per litre to R2,86 for unleaded fuel (91 octane) and R2,90 for leaded fuel (93 octane). The difference between the price of petrol at […]

ETHIOPIA on Friday urged South Africa to extradite former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam to stand trial for human rights atrocities he allegedly ordered during his brutal period of rule. Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe in 1991 just before rebel forces seized the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. He travelled to South Africa earlier this month to receive […]

THE Johannesburg High Court has handed down a life sentence to a 27-year-old man who raped a 9-year-old girl in October last year. Phillip Sikhosana was convicted of raping the girl at a Muldersdrift smallholding on the West Rand, The Star reports. Acting Judge Puke Maserumule on Thursday said courts need to protect children. He […]

AN opposition party meeting was violently broken up by supporters of Namibia’s ruling SWAPO party just four days before general and presidential elections, reports said on Friday. A Congress of Democrats (CoD) meeting at the coastal town of Swakopmund on Thursday evening had to be abandoned after some 2000 supporters of the ruling South West […]

LEGENDARY African footballer Roger Milla, whose four goals helped propel Cameroon to the 1990 World Cup quarter-fianls, has been voted Africa’s Footballer of the Century, by African Soccer magazine. The London-based monthly made it’s choice from a pool of the continent’s top football coaches, players and experts. And it was the name of 47-year-old Milla […]

PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki will visit the St Lucia wetlands on December 4, two days after the area is expected to be named as a world heritage site to protect and preserve it. Two days earlier, he will announce the world heritage decision at a news conference in Durban. On December 4, Mbeki will also report […]

Former president Nelson Mandela on Friday flew to Tanzania to pay his respects to the Nyerere family following the death of former president Julius Nyerere on October 14.

ALL Black winger Jonah Lomu is expected to announce Wednesday that he has signed with the Wellington Rugby Union and will play for the Hurricanes in the Super 12 competition. Lomu’s signature is the biggest in international rugby and his transfer to Wellington will be a huge coup for the province. With fellow All Black […]

BOTSWANA Defence Force (BDF) XI have withdrawn from next year’s African Champions League competition saying they cannot afford the high cost of participating in the tournament. The Botswana champions cited the cost of travel and payment of the travelling costs and expenses of the match officials as the reasons for their withdrawal. The Botswana Football […]

PRESIDENT Daniel arap Moi of Kenya, where AIDS kills 500 people every day, on Thursday declared the disease a national disaster, but declined to advocate condom use to fight the epidemic. Addressing the official opening of a four-day AIDS awareness symposium for legislators here on Thursday, Moi ordered the immediate setting up of a National […]

AN animal welfare group on Friday expressed concern over the plight of more than a hundred animals destined for China after a blue wildebeest died in a crate at the Johannesburg International Airport on Thursday night. Rick Allan, wildlife manager for the National Council of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA), […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 10.30am. SPORTS Minister Ngconde Balfour has given the South African Football Association an ultimatum to sort out its ongoing sagas and get it’s house in order or the government will intervene. “If Safa fails to put in place systems within this period to clean up football, government will step in, […]

ABOUT 2400 Angolans — mostly children, women and elderly people — have fled to northern Namibia over the last 15 days to escape fighting between Angolan government forces and UNITA rebels, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Friday. Many of the refugees are arriving in Namibia’s Kavango region in […]

THE draw for the first round of the Castle Cup Southern Africa championship have been made: Mar 4 – Zimbabwe v Lesotho Mar 18 – Zambia v Botswana Apr 1 – South Africa v Mauritius Apr 15 – Malawi v Mozambique Byes: Angola (holders), Namibia, Swaziland 26