AT least 12 people were killed in an attack by armed Islamic militants in the region of Ain Defla, west of Algiers. Several newspapers reported 13 people were killed in Monday’s attack. Three other people were wounded, two seriously, and five young girls were kidnapped. The dead, including five women, were employed at a center […]

SUSTAINED automatic weapons fire broke out near the home of Central African Republic President Ange-Felix Patasse overnight, when uniformed youth militiamen marched on the residence, witnesses said on Monday. Panic spread among residents of Bangui when twice on Sunday evening live or tracer bullets were fired and volleys of teargas grenades unleashed. The shaven-headed youths […]

THREE Cape Flats policemen were arrested over the weekend and have been charged with armed robbery. Police said Captain Daniel Stander, 34, and Sergeant Steven October, 31, were charged with armed robbery on Monday. A third policeman, Inspector Horatio Lawrence, 35, gave himself up on Sunday. They allegedly robbed self-employed members of the public in […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday 7.30pm. SOUTH Africa’s cricketers, fresh from a humiliating nine-wicket defeat on Sunday, will again meet Nasser Hussain’s England in a Triangular Series one-dayer at Newlands on Wednesday. The locals have Jonty Rhodes back in the side, and his presence is likely to give the South Africans’ morale a sorely […]

THE cash-strapped National Symphony Orchestra has closed down after it was unable to find the R10-million it needs to continue. NSO leader Caius Oprea said on Sunday they have been informed that the institution has run out of money. “We were told that we may even not be paid for this month, meaning that we […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Brussels | Tuesday 3.15pm. FIFA president Sepp Blatter vowed on Tuesday that there will never again be two host nations for the World Cup under his presidency as is the case for Japan and South Korea in 2002. Visiting Brussels to attend the FIFA World Player of the Year awards, Blatter said: “FIFA’s […]

EQYPTAIR CRASH EXPERTS probing the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, which went down off the US Atlantic coast on October 31, have reached no conclusion about the cause of the tragedy. “No hypothesis for the cause of this accident has been accepted,” Jim Hall, Chairman of the National Transportation Safe Board said in a statement, […]

POET and journalist Antije Krog and stage director John Kani, were awarded the Hiroshima Prize in Stockholm on Sunday for their contributions to peace. The million kronor (about R700000) prize, to be shared by the two, was handed over at a ceremony at Stockholm’s Soeder theatre. Krog published a compilation of articles on the work […]

HOLDERS Egypt will retain the African nations cup they won two years ago in Burkina Faso, Egypt’s coach Gerard Gili said on Monday. “My boys played very well in the first half and early in the second, but lost concentration after the second goal thus allowing Zambia to come close to scoring,” Gili said after […]

FRENCHMAN Jean-Louis Schlesser claimed victory on Sunday in the auto class of the 2000 Paris-Dakar-Cairo rally at the foot of the Giza pyramids. The result is yet to be officially confirmed but Schlesser, like compatriot Richard Sainct for the motos, had dominated the 17-stage, 11000km trek interrupted by an airlift over Niger because of terrorist […]