PHILIPE BERNES-LASSERRE, Lagos | Tuesday 3.15pm TROOPS poured into the oil-producing region of southern Nigeria on Monday in a military operation a senior official said is aimed at averting a “total breakdown of law and order”. Dozens of truckloads of heavily-armed soldiers drove into the Bayelsa State capital Yenagoa over the weekend and moved on […]

STEVEN MANN, Cape Town | Tuesday 3.45pm. THE Congress of South African Trade Union has declared war against HIV/Aids and called on the government to declare the epidemic a national emergency. “Government alone cannot win the war against HIV and Aids. Cosatu affiliates and members are in the front-line in the war against AIDS,” Cosatu’s […]

STRIKER Fary Faye scored twice as Senegal outclassed weakened Cote d’Ivoire 3-0 at the weekend in a warm-up match for the 2000 African Nations Cup. Faye from Portuguese Beira Mar club struck after 15 and 36 minutes for the Lions and Mamadou Diallo applied the final blow a minute before the final whistle in Dakar. […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday 7.45pm. BAFANA BAFANA tackle Sweden in the Nelson Mandela Inauguration Challenge in Pretoria on Saturday, and will be gunning for their first victory against a non-African side. Bafana have never put one over a European country before, even though they won the African Nations Cup in 1996, played at […]

AT least four members of Rwanda’s national football team, including its captain, have absconded in Germany, apparently in the hope of playing for professional teams in Belgium, Rwandan officials said on Tuesday. Nicholas Ntare, secretary-general of the Rwanda Amateur Football Association which is responsible for the team, said the players failed to show up at […]

THE Angolan army on Tuesday claimed to have secured the surrender of some 400 Unita rebels during fighting to recapture the southern town of Cuangar. Cuangar, on the border with Namibia, was targetted as part of the army’s strategy to block sources of supply for Unita. Reports said the 400 rebels who surrendered in Cuangar […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 12.30pm. RAJA Casablanca of Morocco host Esperance of Tunisia this weekend in the first leg of a dream African Champions League final. Apart from the glory of winning the premier club competition on the continent, the winners qualify for the first world championship finals and matches against giants like Real […]

PROVINCIAL ANC Youth League organiser in Mpumalanga Alfred Thumbathi has been formally charged with 33 fraud and theft charges on Monday totalling over R900000. The charges are linked to those against sacked ANC Youth League secretary James Nkambule, suspended Mpumalanga Parks Board chief Alan Gray and MPB contract accountant Maxi Green. Nkambule, Gray and Green […]

ANDREW MUCHINERIPI, Johannesburg | Tuesday 10.30am. COINING the phrase “Simply unbelievable” to describe the Rothmans Cup was a stroke of ironic wit that no copy writer had the foresight to know would be so pertinent this season. In a new twist to a tangled soccer year, Jomo Cosmos have been booted out of the lucrative […]

SUDAN, Egypt and Ethiopia have reached a cooperation agreement concerning projects exploiting the waters of the Nile Basin, officials said Friday. In a communique issued at the end of a two-day meeting here, the three countries’ water resources ministers said they had approved an experts’ document setting out the terms of strategic cooperation in Nile […]