Fiona Macleod First they were blamed for the Cape fires, now they’re being blamed for the floods. Experts say the huge forests of alien trees planted in the catchment areas of Mpumalanga have exacerbated the flooding that ravaged the province this week. Mpumalanga produces 39% of the country’s timber. Commercial timber, mostly pine and gum […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Accra | Thursday 10.45pm. PATRICK Mboma scored twice and Samuel Eto’o once in the second half to give Cameroon a 3-0 victory over Tunisia on Thursday night in the African Nations Cup semi-finals. The Indomitable Lions will now tackle co-hosts and title favourites Nigeria in the final on Sunday in Lagos. It will […]

Mercedes Sayagues The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) rally in Mbare township ends peacefully at 3.30pm. I am waiting for a lift into town with an MDC candidate when a group of young men arrives. One is badly wounded – gashes on his head and lips, broken teeth, his shorts spattered with blood. He says […]

Cameron Duodu LETTER FROM THE NORTH Because I knew my Sudan piece would be controversial, I sent it to a friend of mine who works for a large international news agency for her comments before publication. She wrote back: “It is a heart-breaking situation and you, too, will come in for abuse, of course. Off […]

Barry Streek The government is to lay down minimum wages and working conditions for domestic servants and farm workers by March next year, the Department of Labour said this week. The department’s director of minimum standards, Fatima Bhayat, told the Mail & Guardian it would wrap up its policy on the domestic servant industry by […]

Belinda Beresford It came from the north-east, the killer storm, following the Limpopo River, to deliver its fury on South Africa. An immature tropical cyclone is the way climatologists describe it – the phenomenon behind the deluge of rain which has washed over the subcontinent this week. The storm – which just missed being accorded […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Lagos | Friday 5.30pm. BAFANA Bafana coach Trott Moloto is almost certain to be out of a job when his contract expires at the end of the African Nations Cup. Moloto, coach for almost two years, has come under heavy criticism for his 3-5-2 tactics during the 2-0 semi-final defeat by Nigeria on […]

MARK GLEASON, Lagos | Friday 2.15pm. CAMEROON and Nigeria, who meet in the African Nations Cup final in Lagos on Sunday, have both won the competition twice before and meet in the deciding match for the third time in the tournament’s history. Both Cameroon’s Nations Cup victories have come at the expense of the Nigerians, […]

Former president Nelson Mandela will mark the 10th anniversary on Friday of his release from 27 years in apartheid jails by opening a museum.

Charlene Smith CROSSFIRE TV presenter Tracey Going is porcelain-doll pretty, and it was those looks film-maker Richard Latham threatened to destroy when he beat her up two-and-a-half years ago. This week Latham, a millionaire and recovering crack addict, was sentenced to a R5E000 fine or one year in jail suspended for five years for beating […]