Staff Reporter

Howard Barrell African leaders were guardedly optimistic about making progress towards peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo at their meeting in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, which began this week. South Africa has rejoined Congo peace efforts, indicating that it has received assurances from African states supporting Laurent Kabila, Congo’s erratic president, that the new […]

SOUTH African boxer Soon Botes is angry after being notified from Germany that WBU super middleweight champion Norbert Noriega has refused to meet him in a return bout. Botes lost a disputed decision against the German with the vacant WBU title at stake in Dortmund last year, and was assured by WBU president Jon Robinson […]

lap of agony Andy Capostagno Cricket For Brian Lara and his beleaguered team, the agony is almost over. The fifth Test, which begins on Friday at SuperSport Centurion, is the last proper cricket that the West Indies will have to play on this tour of South Africa. From next week on Philo Wallace will be […]

SOUTH Africa and Denmark will play a soccer friendly on April 28 in Copenhagen in a World Cup rematch, the South African Football Association announced in Johannesburg on Thursday. The teams drew 1-1 in a World Cup group match in France. South Africa has not beaten a European team in nine attempts, despite several agonising […]

THE NATIONAL Minister of Health, Dr Nkosazana Zuma, has appointed a task team to investigate the organization of a national health laboratory service. The team will integrate the teaching, training and research activities currently associated with various pathology laboratories.

NAMIBIA has reduced the number of its troops deployed in the north-eastern Caprivi region against a secessionist group and the area is calm, Home Affairs Minister Jerry Ekandjo said on Wednesday. The minister denied claims by Caprivi residents who have fled to Botswana that they are being harassed by police Special Field Forces bidding to […]

President Nelson Mandela is expected to discuss the Angolan war and whether Southern African Development Conference troops may be sent.

SUSPECTED thieves blew up a signal box on the railway line between Germiston South and Germiston West stations on Wednesday afternoon at 3.30pm. The explosion is the latest in a series, usually set by miscreants planning to raid stopped goods trains, the Germiston police said. Nobody was injured in the explosion, opposite a school and […]

AN ALGERIAN stock exchange will open its doors on February 15 after lengthy delays says Ali Boukrami, chairman of the Algerian Securities Commission on Monday. The opening will coincide with the listing of 20% of the biggest domestic pharmaceutical firm, Saidal. The company will offer two million shares at a price of 800 dinars ($13,5) […]

UNSEASONABLY good rains have filled almost all Northern Province’s dams to capacity and could spark a lucrative agricultural boom in the region. Water affairs officials said on Thursday that heavy rains over the past three months have filled the important Ebenerzer, Klaserie and Magoebaskloof dams to 100% capacity while all others in the province are […]

SUDAN has opted to use the unified European currency, the euro, in its commercial transations as an alternative to the United States dollar. The Bank of Sudan said in a circular to various banks of the country, that “we are going to concentrate in the coming period on conducting commercial transactions in the euro as […]

CNN HAS implemented a poll on whether South Africa ought to implement racial quotas for teams competing in the Currie Cup. They outline a couple of sides of the issue in their piece, and the results are unambiguously against any kind of quota. See the poll, and vote at: CNN and view the results at: […]

SOCCER players of the Zambian national women’s squad blamed their coaches on Wednesday for their 15-0 defeat by South Africa in Swaziland. They claimed the coaches were more interested in sex than soccer. One of the players said that some male coaches demanded sexual favours in return for a place in the women’s national team. […]

AT least 18 people have been granted amnesty recently and five others refused by the Amnesty Committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Among those granted amnesty is an Inkatha Freedom Party member Boy Vusimuzi Gwamanda who applied for amnesty for the 1990 conspiracy to kill Mpumalanga Premier Mathews Phosa. Other people granted amnesty include […]

TWO Italian Roman Catholic missionaries who were abducted recently in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown have been freed, the missionary news agency Misna reported here on Wednesday.They have been taken to a site near Freetown’s airport on Wednesday.Maurizio Boa and Giuliano Pini, who belong to the Giuseppini del Murialdo order, were abducted on Sunday. A third […]

NEDBANK on Tuesday confirmed reports that theives had tapped into its cardholder accounts and spent an estimated R1-million in a shopping spree that involved about 2000 transactions. Nedcor chief operations executive Mike Leeming confirmed that the bank will repay clients for losses as a result of the fraud. He claimed that “certain precautions” in the […]

SEVEN of the young Tuli elephants belonging to Riccardo Ghiazza’s African Game Services were shipped out of South Africa on Wednesday night, bound for zoos in Germany and Switzerland. National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals spokesperson Christine Kuch said the elephants were moved from Ghiazza’s Brits premises on Wednesday morning. […]

THE International Olympics Committee bribery scandal in Salt Lake City has penetrated Swaziland, where Olympic Committee president David Sibandze has been notified that he is suspected of having accepted payments for favours in the United States. Several IOC members allegedly received bribes from Salt Lake City Olympic bid officials, hoping to secure votes for the […]

FOREIGNERS were net sellers of R799,3-million worth of South African government bonds on Wednesday after selling R226-million on Tuesday, according to the latest Bond Exchange data.

KENYA posted gross domestic product growth of 1,6% from October 1997 to October 1998, the Central Bank of Kenya said in its monthly economic review released on Thursday. “The slow growth in economic activity continued into October 1998,” the Bank said. Real GDP grew 2,3% in calendar 1997 and 1,5% in the 12 months to […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Abidjan | Thursday 11.15pm. A SENIOR rebel commander in Sierra Leone said on Thursday that he has agreed to a temporary ceasefire to halt hostilities in the capital Freetown. Rebels of the Revolutionary United Front invaded the city last week, and have since been fighting Nigerian intervention troops of the regional Ecomog force. […]

A STRONG contingent of South Africa’s top athletes and several international stars will compete in the first of the 1999 Absa series prestige meetings in Bloemfontein on January 23. A showdown is expected between Africa’s number one discus thrower and 1998 Commonwealth Games silver medallist, Free Stater Frantz Kruger, and Aleksandr Borichevsky, the Russian champion. […]

EIGHTEEN members of Zanzibar’s main opposition party will go on trial for high treason on Friday, facing execution or life in jail if convicted, after more than a year in detention. The Civic United Front members are charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government of President Salmin Amour which rules the twin semi-autonomous Tanzanian islands […]

A STONE-age site about 10000 years old has been discovered in Midrand near the Jukskei Valley, the Midrand Metropolitan Local Council announced on Thursday. The discovery was made with the help of Professor Revil Mason, retired head of the archaeology research unit at the Witwatersrand University. “This is the first time ever that a constructed […]

President Nelson Mandela will unveil a memorial to Mozambican President Samora Machel on January 19.

MALAWI’S former works and supplies minister, Abdul Pillane, was arrested on Tuesday night on charges of corruption, an official of the country’s Anti-Corruption Bureau said on Wednesday. Pillane is expected to be brought before a lower court in the administrative capital Lilongwe on Wednesday. The official said Pillane, the first Malawian minister to be charged […]

A SECOND suspect faced murder charges in Soweto’s Protea Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday in connection with last week’s ambush of a Soweto police van and subsequent mass escape of awaiting trial prisoners. Sowetan Lawrence Dube (22) was charged with the murder of Sergeant Christopher Sithebe and Sergeant Elias Matima Senwamadi in a bloody ambush last […]

CONGO’S President Denis Sassou Nguesso reshuffled his government on Tuesday and named a defence minister as part of his battle against rival militiamen of the previous government. The main change in the reshuffle, officially announced late on Tuesday, is the naming of one of Sassou Nguesso’s aides, Lekounzou Iti Osetoumba, to run defence affairs with […]

ZIMBABWE’S Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) has been replaced by a Civil Aviation Authority from January 1 as part of a privatisation programme, transport and energy minister Enos Chikowore said Monday. “The DCA has ceased to exist and all posts are abolished,” he said when launching the Civil Aviation Authority’s first board meeting. Chikowore said […]

SHEPHERD “Mzimba” Kiviet will replace Stanley Christodoulou at the helm of the South African National Boxing Control Commission, according to the body’s outgoing chairman, Peter Ngatane. Christodoulou resigned just before Sports Minister Steve Tshwete fired the commission’s executive committee on Christmas Eve. Kiviet will run the commission until February 1, when an interim commission will […]

A KENYAN court Wednesday sentenced three foreigners to three months in prison each for smoking and causing a disturbance aboard a Kenya Airways flight from Lagos to Nairobi. Aboubakar Omar Hussein and Ramadhan Faiz Abeid of Tanzania and Nalillakaren Appu of India were charged with committing the offences on Tuesday aboard Kenya Airways flight KQ-433. […]

FORMER Western Cape Premier Hernus Kriel is in a stable condition in the Panorama Medi Clinic near Cape Town after undergoing heart bypass surgery on Wednesday morning. He will remain in the hospital’s intensive care unit for the next few days. Kriel (57) suffered a heart attack at his holiday home in Kleinmond on Monday.