MONDAY, 5.30PM: The all gold index on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange slid even further today after Friday’s rout, losing 18 points to fall to 709. The financial index fell too, shedding 48 points to 10 043. But industrials saved the day however, with the index climbing 45 points to 7 757, to ensure that the […]

MONDAY, 12.15PM: SOUTH AFRICA’S opening game against Western Australia in Perth ended in a draw on Sunday. Western Australia never showed much interest in chasing a fourth-innings target of 289 in 52 overs. South Africa declared immediately after lunch at 167/3 with Hansie Cronje at 59 not out off 70 balls and Adam Bacher with […]

MONDAY, 5.30PM: CONGOLESE President Laurent Kabila put off a visit to his closest ally, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, on Monday morning, while he struggled to halt clashes between his own soldiers in Kinshasa. The armed clashes began on Thursday, resulting in at least 20 deaths, and have included gunfights inside army barracks and the presidential […]

MONDAY, 12.15PM: KAIZER CHIEFS and Mamelodi Sundowns played to a 1-1 draw in the final of the Rothmans Cup at the FNB stadium on Saturday. Both teams had chances but were denied goals by good goalkeeping. It was Chiefs who immediately put pressure in the first half and were unlucky not to have scored a […]

BANDA TAKES IT WITH HIM The late Malawian president Hastings Kamuzu Banda, who died last week aged 99, will take his lavish lifestyle to the grave with a $37 000 coffin. The gold-plated casket, “fit for a former head of state”, comes with a 75-year guarantee. Said diplomat John Chikago: “By guarantee, I mean that […]

Karlin Lillington asks why we should read a book from cover to cover when it’s possible to dip in and out Now read on – or back, or sideways, or anywhere. Welcome to the world of hypertext fiction, the latest genre to win critical acclaim. “There is no simple way to say this.” The opening […]

FRIDAY, 4.00PM: The soldier who removed the landmine intended to blow up Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s armoured Mercedes Benz (see below) said it was not powerful enough to penetrate the car’s armour. Lance Corporal John Manunure told the treason trial of opposition leader Ndabaningi Sithole that the claymore mine was an anti-personnel mine. While it […]

Stakeholders pass the buck and the blame for local content malaise, writes Glynis O’Hara Local contempt for local content. This accusation sparked quite a debate at last week’s Durban pow-wow on the state of local content on our airwaves. All parties – from Cabinet ministers, the SABC, M-Net, performers, technicians, community radio to record companies […]

The Bok coach finds his stage Steve Morris To say Nick Mallett has revitalised South African rugby is stating the obvious. But to claim that he has been solely responsible denigrates the work done before him by Kitch Christie and, it must be added, Ian McIntosh and Andre Markgraaff. What Mallett has done is relaunch […]

Alex Brummer As we know from the dramas at Barings and Bank of Credit and Commerce International, financial collapses in globalised financial markets are no longer national affairs. The collapse of Japan’s Yamaichi, one of the world’s top 10 investment houses, is a problem for the whole global financial system. It could not have come […]