SOUTH Africa’s Olympic champion Josiah Thugwane is one of seven leading athletes to join a strong men’s field for April’s London Marathon. Organisers said on Tuesday that reigning champion Abdelkader El Mouaziz of Morocco, Italy’s European champion Stefano Baldini and Portugal’s twice winner Antonio Pinto had also agreed to take part. World record holder Khalid […]

THE country’s population is estimated to reach 44,7-million this year, the Bureau of Market Research at the University of South Africa said in a research report published on Monday. Earlier projections indicated a population figure of about 80-million by 2021, but factors such as declining fertility levels and life expectancies due to Aids put that […]

ONLY one change has been made to the Border Bears team to play Easterns in a Standard Bank Cup limited-overs match at Buffalo Park on Wednesday. Pieter Strydom will be joining the national squad for the fifth Test at Centurion, and his place has been taken by all-rounder, Francois Klopper, who played in the last […]

PIK Botha, the apartheid’s government’s foreign minister for 17 years, is considering joining the African National Congress, and called in a Sunday newspaper on fellow Afrikaners to do the same. Botha said in an interview with the City Press newspaper that the time had come for whites, especially Afrikaners, to reach out to blacks in […]

ECONOMIC growth across Africa averaged 3,5% in 1999, much the same as in 1998, African Development Bank (AfDB) President Omar Kabbaj said on Monday, citing provisional figures. He told a meeting of ambassadors to Ivory Coast that the Asian crisis and the spread of conflict in some African countries meant that growth rates of 4,0% […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Monday 3.45pm. SWAZILAND may soon be without its best soccer players after the national team accused the country of exploiting their talents by paying match fees of only R25 per international. Players, headed by team vice captain Siza Dlamini, also complained they are paid only R5000 in appearance fees, while […]

GHANAIAN President Jerry Rawlings named Trade and Industry Minister John Abu as the new Minister for Mines and Energy on Monday. Deputy mines and energy minister Simon Abinga has held the fort in the ministry since December 9. The last permanent mines minister, Fred Ohene-Kena, was sacked in October after expressing support for a bid […]

IRISH Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, arrived at the Waterkloof Airforce base in Pretoria on Tuesday morning for a four day visit to South Africa. Ahern was met by Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Aziz Pahad. Premier Ahern will meet Deputy President Jacob Zuma, and pay a courtesy call on President Thabo Mbeki later in the afternoon.

MINISTER of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin on Friday released the names of eight manufacturers shortlisted to produce new purpose-built public transport vehicles. AMC, DaimlerChrysler, Iveco, QLS and Tata have all proposed to build either 18-seater or 35-seater configurations while GAZ, Kwoon Chung and Malandela have tendered to supply 18-seaters.

COTE d’Ivoire maintained a timely return to form by defeating holders Egypt 2-0 at the weekend in a warm-up match for the African Nations Cup finals this month. Charles Dago put the Elephants ahead after only two minutes at the Felix Houphouet-Boigny Stadium in Abidjan and Bonaventure Kalou added a second nine minutes before the […]