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/ 21 December 2006
Somali Islamists and their Ethiopian-allied government rivals shelled each other for a third day on Thursday, a day after a European Union envoy said the two sides had agreed to new peace talks. Deputy Defence Minister Salad Ali Jelle said the fighting erupted in the morning near Dinsoor, 100km south-west of the government’s surrounded stronghold, Baidoa.
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/ 21 December 2006
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, whose country is suffering from record inflation and experiencing shortages of basic foodstuffs, declared on Wednesday the economy was on the road to recovery. Mugabe said that tie-ups with new allies in Asia had helped bring about a turnaround in the country’s fortunes.
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/ 21 December 2006
To drive by moonlight down the Cape Peninsula’s western shore, and to be lost in that silvery no-man’s-land night between stone-pine and kelp forest, is to be reminded of how beautiful fire can be. You see it far away, at first, nothing more than a blob of incandescence against the black surge of the Atlantic.
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/ 21 December 2006
Father Christmas goes "Ho, ho, ho". The bag of goodies slung over his shoulder, hopefully, brings joy and happiness to the laughing faces of children and adults alike. But one has to ask oneself what there is to celebrate at the end of this difficult year.
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/ 21 December 2006
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) will investigate allegations that 30 prisoners were stripped naked in the presence of women warders at the Westville prison, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported on Wednesday.
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/ 21 December 2006
Chelsea striker Didier Drogba broke Newcastle’s hearts again as his superb late goal clinched a 1-0 League Cup quarterfinal win on Wednesday. Drogba had come off the bench to score the winner against Newcastle in the Premiership last week and he repeated the trick at St James’ Park.
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/ 21 December 2006
Newly crowned Telkom Knockout champions Silver Stars secured Premier Soccer League boasting rights for the Christmas recess when they cemented their position at the top of the PSL table after a gruelling, uncompromising 0-0 draw against defending champions Mamelodi Sundowns at Atteridgeville’s Super Stadium on Wednesday night.
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/ 21 December 2006
Under normal circumstances, a review of a nation’s sporting progress would be inclined to be critical of failures. Losses would be analysed, disasters decried. But normal circumstances in modern South African sport imply failure, and thus hardened to sporting infamy, the armchair critic must refrain from launching unfairly pointed or excessively accurate barbs.
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/ 21 December 2006
There is no such person as Oregan Hoskins. The president of the South African Rugby Union is known to his friends, of which there are many, as Regan. When his wife to be, Geraldine, met his parents, she was shocked to discover this other identity and wondered whether she was marrying the wrong person.
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/ 21 December 2006
England fast bowler Steve Harmison announced on Thursday he was retiring from one-day cricket, three months before the World Cup. Harmison (28) decided to suddenly quit after being left out of England’s 16-man squad for the upcoming triangular series whit Australia and New Zealand, the last tournament before next year’s World Cup in the West Indies.