RUSSIA’s upper house of parliament approved sending reinforcements to the United Nations peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone on Wednesday. The Federation Council, empowered to approve the sending of troops abroad, voted to back the dispatch of 115 men and four Mi-24 helicopters to the west African state, where rebels earlier took hundreds of UN peacekeepers […]
ALAN FINLAY & Reuters, Johannesburg | Thursday 4.30pm. THE rand has eased back to the R7 to the dollar mark for the first time in a week, after the currency failed to take inspiration from a firmer euro. The currency strengthened somewhat in midday trade to be last bid at R6,98 to the dollar but […]
OLD Mutual, South Africa’s largest life and pensions group, may spend up to 1,5-billion on new acquisitions in the United States and Britain, the company was quoted as saying on Wednesday. Old Mutual chief executive Jim Sutcliffe told Business Day newspaper that the group, which recently acquired UK broker and fund manager Gerrard Group for […]
FORMER South African cricket coach Bob Woolmer said on Wednesday that he received money for information he supplied to Graham Cowdrey a professional bookmaker in England. Woolmer said in Port Elizabeth: “A few of us who were not involved at all as players or in any other capacity in a County match, kept Chris Cowdrey’s […]
NIGERIAN workers began a general strike on Thursday over petrol price increases after last-ditch talks between labour chiefs and the government ended in deadlock. Witnesses said protesters barricaded roads into the main business districts in the commercial capital Lagos. Shops and banks were also closed. “The streets are deserted because protesters turned back the few […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 1.30pm. WENDELL Domingo, manager of the South African men’s hockey team barred from Olympic competition by the National Olympic Commission of South Africa, says that “because of Nocsa, hockey in this country is dead.” The Cape Argus reported on Thursday that at least six players are considering quitting the […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 5.45pm. SOUTH African opening batsman Herschelle Gibbs on Thursday effectively sealed Hansie Cronje’s fate when he confessed he had accepted an offer from his former skipper to make less than 20 runs in a one-day match in India in exchange for $15000. The bombshell confession also casts a dark […]
Former president Nelson Mandela said he believes his successor Thabo Mbeki has done a good job during his first year as president.
NORTHERN Province’s local government and housing department has juggled its budget to free R385 million to repair flood damage wrought in February, announced department spokesman, Danny Msiza, on Wednesday. He said housing projects worth R228 million would now be aimed at the 18 781 families left homeless in 342 villages by the floods. An amount […]
THE UN has expressed concern at the plight of two dissident Cuban doctors reportedly detained in Zimbabwe after seeking asylum in a third country. The two, Leonel Cordova Rodriguez, 31, and Noris Pea Martinez, 25, were taken from their home by armed soldiers in the capital, Harare, on Friday afer allegedly denouncing the Cuban leader, […]