THE South African Tennis Association on Wednesday decided to move the Euro-African Zone group 1 tie from Johannesburg to Cape Town after players expressed their concerns about playing at altitude. Despite signing a letter of commitment to hold the April 2-4 contest at Johannesburg’s Standard Bank venue, Sata has agreed to pay a penalty fee […]

A COALITION of eight opposition parties in Niger has taken the lead in weekend municipal elections, according to preliminary and partial results released in the capital Niamey on Thursday by the National Independent Electoral Commission (Ceni). The coalition, which has fared better in Niger’s main cities, has captured 318 municipal seats out out 570 districts, […]

KALAHARI Bushmen who once occupied the land in the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park will be returned a part of the park plus additional land in a historic agreement to be saigned next month. Land Affairs Minister Derek Hanekom said on Thursday. the land claim is at “the point of settlement” and he is confident the […]

MOZAMBIQUE’S public tele-communications company, TDM, has invited tender bids for a multimillion dollar underwater fibre-optic communications cable linking the country’s two biggest cities of Maputo and Beira. The project is partly financed by Germany, which has imposed preconditions forcing developers to source all components for the project from either Germany or Southern African Development Community […]

FUGITIVE German billionaire Jurgen Harksen collapsed at the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday after being refused bail. Harksen was admitted to hospital under police guard with a suspected heart attack. Cape Town Magistrate Mike Wagener, who earlier this week ordered Harksen’s extradition to Germany on tax evasion charges, on Wednesday refused him bail and […]

ZIMBABWE’S short-term money market rates spiked higher on Wednesday in their first large reaction to the central bank’s weekend rates hike. However, localised student unrest at the university campus on Wednesday had no effect on trade, dealers said. The Reserve Bank lifted its benchmark bank rate on Saturday by 2,5 percentage points to 45% and, […]

A CONSTRUCTION engineer told the Inyaka bridge inquiry on Thursday that cracks which appeared in the bridge before it collapsed were wider than allowed. Ricardo de Sastet, an engineer for the bridge’s builders Concor Construction, told the inquiry that cracks seen on the bridge before the collapse were 1,2 metres long and two millimetres wide […]

President Nelson Mandela and his wife Graa Machel will visit Sweden next month.

SEVERAL people died after tanker drivers and cattle herders clashed at a Lagos market in another episode of a long-running dispute. Nigerian newspapers reported on Thursday that up to eight people were killed at Marine Beach in Lagos’s Apapa port district and up to 18 fuel tankers and other vehicles were set on fire and […]