SARAH BULLEN, Cape Town | Friday 5.00pm VOLATILE local markets took a knock on Friday despite welcoming a strong opening of Parliament speech by President Thabo Mbeki. Just an hour before market closed, however, the bullion price unexpectedly surged to $295 catching dealers off guard. The JSE was just in time to catch the run […]

MOROCCAN minister for youth and sport, Ahmad Mussawi, held talks with Saudi officials in Riyadh on Sunday in connection with his country’s bid for the 2006 World Cup. Mussawi, touring the Gulf Arab states to seek backing for the bid, met Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz and the head of the kingdom’s sports and […]

FOUR bills aimed at legally burying South Africa’s apartheid history and cementing its young democracy have been signed into law by President Thabo Mbeki. The Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Bill, the Promotion of Access to Information Bill, the Promotion of Administrative Justice Bill and the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Bill completed […]

SARAH BULLEN, Cape Town | Friday 6.00pm BUSINESS has given President Thabo Mbeki’s State of the Nation address the thumbs up in what it has digested as a market friendly statement — but one that lacked in depth and detail what it made up in for with good cheer. “As expected and in true political […]

NIGERIA have dropped their leading scorer in the African Nations Cup, Victor Ikpeba, for their decisive Group D match against Morocco on Thursday. Ikpeba, who plays for Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund scored twice against Tunisia in Nigeria’s opening game. But Dutch coach Jo Bonfrere pulled out the striker during the match against Congo which ended […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Sunday 8.45pm SOUTH Africa’s labour laws are stangling small business, and have to be amended, President Thabo Mbeki said in an interview published on Sunday. Mbeki expanded on his parliamentary address, and told the Sunday Times that labour laws, planned to overhaul exploitative labour legislation, were a problem, as they […]

BOXING Legend Roberto Duran’s daughter has signed on with Golden Gloves and will be making her professional boxing debut in South Africa in March. She is the third daughter of a legend to turn pro, and follows in the footsteps of Mohammad Ali and George Frazier’s girls. Duran will be entering the ring as a […]

LANCE Klusener on Wednesday became the second fastest player to achieve the double of 1000 runs and 100 wickets in one-day internationals when he trapped Zimbabwe’s Murray Goodwin lbw. Klusener, playing his 70th one-day international, took one for 45 to claim his 100th wicket. His unbeaten 65 earlier in the match took his run tally […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Sunday 9.00pm KWAZULU-Natal has reintroduced DDT to fight the malaria epidemic in the northern parts of the province, despite a worldwide ban on the toxic insecticide. The spokesman for the provincial department of health, Dave McGlew, said at the weekend the use of DDT will be strictly controlled. “This is […]

DIVERS searching coastal waters off Cote d’Ivoire have retrieved one of the black box recorders from a Kenya Airways plane that crashed and killed 169 people. Members of Abidjan’s diving club pulled one of the black boxes from the water on Friday morning and also said they had seen bodies among the fuselage and debris. […]