FRIDAY, 12.00NOON: IT was tough times for the South African Fed Cup team playing their final round-robin tie against a fired-up Romanian side at the Europe/Africa qualifying tornament in La Manga, Spain, on Thursday. Both Jessica Steck and Mariaan de Swardt were in trouble in their respective matches, facing tough challenges from opponents whose skills […]

exports Mungo Soggot The taxman is part of a team tasked with probing the way the state evaluates diamonds following an unprecedented finding that De Beers undervalued gems due for export. Minister of Minerals and Energy Penuell Maduna appointed the team of civil servants this week after meeting with De Beers. It emerged last week […]

THE Nigerian government has ordered immediate payment of the approved minimum wage to end a public sector strike in 24 of Nigeria’s 36 states, a union leader said, according to reports on Friday. Sylvester Ogbeifun, a local chairman of the main trades union federation, the Nigeria Labour Congress, said the office of the chief of […]

LESOTHO’S King Letsie III (36) is engaged to be married, Lesotho Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili told the country’s parliament on Thursday. A date for his state wedding to Karabo Motsoening, a science student at the University of Lesotho, has yet to be announced.

Prominent journalists, friends and relatives who knew veteran photojournalist and TV newsman John Rubython crammed into Cape Town’s St George’s cathedral on Thursday to pay their last respects. Rubython (58) was stabbed to death in his Woodstock home early on Monday morning by a young burglar. Rubython’s partner, Melanie Junker, and their three-month-old baby, Marie-Hlen, […]

RIOT police in Zimbabwe used tear gas on Wednesday to stop protesting students marching into the centre of Harare to press home demands for better loans and shorter vactions. Police fired tear gas at thousands of students who were trying to leave the Univeristy of Zimbabwe campus — situated in one of Harare’s upmarket suburbs […]

ZAMBIA and Angola have finally agreed to meet to discuss persistent allegations that some top Zambian government officials have helped Angola’s Unita rebels rearm, president Frederick Chiluba announced on Wednesday. He said the Angolan authorities have provided the Zambian government with details of the accusations which Zambia responded to “detail by detail”. He did not […]

A ZAMBIAN magistrate on Friday charged with espoinage the 12 Postjournalists arrested last month. The journalists from the Post newspaper, who include the managing director and editor, Fred M’membe, were separately arrested and charged with espionage, which carries a minimum jail term of twenty years, after their paper carried a story comparing Zambia’s military capabilities […]

Ian Clayton Some “struggle accounting” was uncovered in the Department of Trade and Industry by Auditor General Henri Kluever when he examined its accounts for a R3,1-million small business conference. The department spent an extra R1,2-million without authorisation over and above the R2-million it received from the Danish government for the second national conference on […]

Andrew Worsdale Movies of the week Hate has always been a powerful driving force for movie narratives; whether it’s the supposedly morally correct vigilante hatred of Dirty Harry’s “Feeling lucky Punk?”, Ralph Fiennes diabolically loathsome Krakow Nazi Commandant, Amon Goeth, teetering on the brink of racial madness in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, or Malcolm McDowell’s […]