TUESDAY, 11.00AM DESPITE arms industry executives making dire warnings about job cuts and project closures following the latest defence budget cuts, Denel acting MD Seshi Chonco on Monday announced preliminary talks with three Mediterranean and Persian Gulf states regarding possible purchases of the Rooivalk combat helicopter. Algeria, Turkey and Saudi Arabaia are reported to be […]
TUESDAY, 8.00AM POLICE broke up rallies in Kenyan towns yesterday, firing rubber bullets and beating pro-reform demonstrators with truncheons and pick-axe handles in violent clashes which left nine people dead — some of them children — and many injured. Demonstrations and rallies were held in 56 towns around the country, demanding constitutional reforms before presidential […]
TUESDAY, 10.30AM: ENGLISH Second Division soccer side Fulham have snapped up South Africa’s number one goalkeeper Andre Arendse for an undisclosed amount. Fulham signed Arendse from Cape Town Spurs. “The club has apparently been highly impressed with Andre and he in turn feels that with Fulham aiming at a spot in the English Premier League, […]
MONDAY, 1.00PM SPOORNET, the railways division of transport parastatal Transnet, has a bought 20% stake in Interferrea, a Brazilian-owned transport consortium. The deal is the first step towards Spoornet’s goal of entering joint venture opportunities in South America, the Far East and Africa. According to Spoornet executive director Mafike Mkwanazi, Interferrea recently acquired the Brazilian […]
MONDAY, 2.30PM: SOUTH African Football Association general manager Dennis Mumble said Safa is surprised at reports that Four Nations Tournament sponsor Foodcorp has withdrawn its R7-million backing of the competition. Mumble expressed his disappointment that “Awesome Sports International did not make us aware of this development”. He said Safa only learnt of the issue over […]
NO CERTIFICATES GAUTENG’s 1996 matriculants are still without certificates because issuing of the certificates was scheduled for after the supplementary examinations. Only 62 000 of the 79 000 matriculants have certificates. Gauteng education MEC Mary Metcalfe said because some candidates have been involved in irregularities, certificates are being re-checked. HEADLINE HERE THE Australian Deputy Prime […]
MONDAY, 11.30AM: The new managing director of Amazulu, Lawrence Ngubane, has signed three Zimbabwean internationals in a bid to strengthen his side. Steward Murisa, Alois Bunjira and Callisto Pasuwa have moved from Zimbabwean champions Caps United. Ngubane said he was impressed by the three players when Orlando Pirates played United in the Africa club soccer […]
MONDAY, 5.30PM SHARE prices on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange fell across the board on Monday as the bullion price continued its free fall. Gold fixed in London in the afternoon at $318,00, before falling further to $316, a new ten-and-half-year low. The continued fall of bullion precipitated a four-and-a-half-year low on the JSE’s gold index, […]
MONDAY, 1.00PM THE Labour Court has acted decisively against labour consultants hoping to represent employees before the court of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration by masquerading as unionists or officials of employer organisations. The Labour Relations Act prevents labour consultants from appearing in the Labout Court or CCMA, specifying that parties can only […]
MONDAY, 5.00PM DEMOCRATIC Republic of the Congo President Laurent Kabila arrived in the Namibian capital Windhoek on Monday morning for a two-day official visit, during which a major Windhoek street will be named after him. Kabila, on his second official visit to an African state since he took power in May, was due to hold […]
MONDAY, 3.30PM ARMS manufacturer Denel on Monday confirmed the resignation of MD Johan Alberts. In a statement in Pretoria, the group said: “The Minister for Public Enterprises, Ms Stella Sigcau, has accepted Mr Alberts’s request to be relieved of his responsibilities at the Denel Group.” Although the group did not give reasons for Alberts’s resignation, […]
MONDAY, 11.30AM: ALL Blacks coach John Hart added three new players to the 23-member squad to play against South Africa in a tri-nations match on Saturday July 19 at Ellis Park stadium in Johannesburg. Mark Cooksley, Canterbury Crusaders’ captain Todd Blackadder and Jon Preston were added to the squad. Preston was recalled to the squad […]
MONDAY, 11.30AM: THE Springboks won Saturday’s third Test match against the British Lions 35-16, salvaging some of their honour after losing the first two matches and the series. Bok captain Joost van der Westhuizen said he and his teammates were suprised by the visitors’ play, their handling skills and the way they took the ball […]
MONDAY, 11.00AM WITH the gold mining industry facing crisis as the bullion price plunges, the National Union of Mineworkers and the Chamber of Mines, locked in annual wage negitiations, cannot reach agreement on the number of additional shifts required to raise production by 90 tons a year in a bid to ensure the industry’s survival. […]
intervention Gustav Thiel THE outgoing chief censor, Dr Braam Coetzee, believes censorship is about to end in South Africa. The new law enacted last year embodies the principles of democracy and will make the public the guardians of morality, he says. Turning his 17 years as a censor on its head, Coetzee now says he […]
WITH striking candour, Penuell Maduna admitted to the parliamentary committee on mineral and energy affairs last October that, four months into his new job, he was struggling. “I don’t know where to begin,” the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs confessed. It was easy to understand why. He inherited from Pik Botha a weak, thoroughly […]
Chris Opperman RICH VERSTER, the former Military Intelligence spy now being debriefed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was allegedly a crook who disguised gold and diamond scams as covert activities. Verster is awaiting trial in a British jail on charges of drug smuggling. Transvaal Deputy Attorney General and former prosecutor in the Eugene de […]
BP is using a secretive security firm to guard its oil rigs and staff in a `red zone’, report Michael Sean Gillard and Melissa Jones in Casanare, Colombia EVER since the giant British Petroleum company (BP) arrived in the Andean foothills of eastern Colombia eight years ago, its security operation there has been shrouded in […]
Ann Eveleth JOE DIESCHO, the most senior black administrator at the University of South Africa, has been gagged, demoted and deprived of his official car. He is the public relations director, but stands accused of publicly criticising the university. These actions follow two press interviews earlier this year in which he echoed growing campus criticisms […]
The ANC is struggling with the fact that the elimination of poverty will not be achieved unless metropolitan areas can be governed at a local level, argues Mark Swilling THEY used to say in the 1970s and 1980s that “when Soweto sneezes, the country catches a cold”. Extended into the democratic non-racial 1990s, we should […]
halt Ferial Haffajee THE government’s determination to keep the lid on the public sector wage bill took a drubbing this week when four trade unions announced a month of mass action. Ironically, the fight is not with old-guard civil servants, but with the Congress of South African Trade Unions’ affiliates, whose members are the police, […]
The old regime has been blamed for a large discrepancy in the Census 96 figures. But the man who built the apartheid model defends his numbers. Gaye Davis and Mungo Soggot report THE old guard in charge of counting South Africa’s population has crossed swords with the new in the wake of this week’s revelation […]
FRIDAY, 5.00PM SEVEN senior Johannesburg detectives, including the notorious former head of the Brixton Murder and Robbery squad, Superintendent Charlie Landman, on Friday quit the police to join private security firm Khulani Springbok Patrols. A KSP spokesman and police spokesman Inspector Mark Reynolds confirmed that Landman, three captains from his former unit and three inspectors […]
FRIDAY, 10.30AM GAYE DERBY-LEWIS, the wife of fomer Conservative Party MP Clive Derby-Lewis, has complained to the Truth and Reconciliation of “gross contempt of court” during her husband’s recent amnesty hearing. Derby-Lewis, whose amnesty hearing was postponed until next month, is serving a life sentence together with Polish immigrant Janusz Walus for the murder in […]
FRIDAY, 11.30AM The gold price, already under severe pressure for some time, plummeted on Thursday as the Australian reserve bank cut its reserves by a third, selling 167 tons of the precious metal. Gold closed in New York ahead of the Independence Day holiday $5,90 lower, at $325,25/oz. Some analysts had expected prevailing conditions to […]
South Africans are stampeding to join the censor board, reports Mungo Soggot. And our new censorship law may be as restrictive as the old one SOUTH AFRICANS are stamping to become censors, with more than 850 nominees competing for a place on the new censor board which is due to start work in September. In […]
A businessman wanted in Germany for tax evasion says he gave money to the ANC because `he was interested in politics’, writes Gustav Thiel A GERMAN citizen who allegedly owes his government R500-million in tax arrears and is fighting his extradition from South Africa claims he has contributed more than R100 000 to the African […]
Tongaat-Hulett is the first company to make submissions to the truth commission, writes Enoch Mthembu T ONGAAT-HULETT, the KwaZulu-Natal sugar giant, has become the first company called to account to the Truth and Reconcilation Commission, after the discovery of an activist’s corpse on its property. The company has handed written submissions to the commission explaining […]
FRIDAY, 10.15AM: THE South African rugby team suffered a double blow on Thursday — two injured Springboks were ruled out of the third Test Match against the British Lions at Ellis Park stadium on Saturday. Fullback Andre Joubert suffered a groin Injury during a training session in Johannesburg, and reserve flyhalf Boeta Wessels strained a […]
Martin Walker in Washington THE United States Supreme Court has authorised free speech on the Internet, striking down a new law that sought to bar cyberporn to children. Internet activists hailed the court’s landmark judgment, handed down late last month, as a major victory for free speech which would keep the fast-growing global network of […]
FRIDAY, 1.00PM Telecoms parastatal Telkom on Thursday posted a 61,3% rise in attributable profit to R1,95-billion for the year to end March, which translated to earnings a share of 50c. Chairman Dikgang Moseneke said the rose in profits was the first tangible result of the company’s transformation programme, which led to tighter cost controls and […]
The debates (and fears) around Africanism often turn on a misreading of the term, writes Charlene Smith AFRICANIST remains a dirty word among those who are not a darker shade of chocolate. But, and here the pigmentally challenged need to take note, a new African consciousness (the new terminology) is becoming a hallmark of the […]