Maya Jaggi: FIRST PERSON Carmen Legge is 35 years old. She is a successful insurance broker, she has long red hair, she owns a BMW, she has her own flat. And she has a boyfriend who “wants it four times a day”. In short she has everything that Bridget Jones, protagonist in Helen Fielding’s book […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 5.30pm. SOUTH Africa have won the Mandela Cup friendly match against Egypt by 2-1. After closing the first half on one goal each, the second half got off to a slow start, with the pace broken by several substitutions on both sides. There were a couple of missed opportunities on […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 5.15pm. WEST Indies manager Clive Lloyd claimed injuries, illness and attitude problems have brought about the West Indies’ dismal showing in South Africa so far. After seven matches on tour, the West Indies have yet to register a win, even in one-day games against invitation teams, and trail 2-0 against […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 11.00am. THE University of South Africa (Unisa) has reinstated Namibian academic Joe Diescho who was gagged and demoted after being accused of publicly criticising the university. A commission of enquiry originally found that the decision by former principal and vice-chancellor, Marinus Wiechers, to axe Diescho was “legally and morally incorrect”. […]

MICHAEL METELITS, Johannesburg | Monday 5.00pm. The rand broke through the R6 to the dollar barrier again on Monday, driving stock indices and the bond market down sharply. The rand closed at R6,015 to the dollar, in light trading dominated by a few large dollar orders. The R6 barrier is now a key level for […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 9.00pm. South Africa gained a crushing 178-run over the West Indies when the tourists collapsed to 141 all out in their second innings on the third day of the second Test at St George’s Park on Saturday. South Africa lead 2-0 in the five-match series. West Indies were set to […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 7.00pm. THE National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union on Sunday warned employers in tertiary education institutions to put a moratorium on retrenchments or face a national strike early next year. More than 3000 have been retrenched in the sector so far. Nehawu president Vusi Nhlapo warned that the union […]

BERTRAND ROSENTHAL, Mutsamudu | Sunday 6.00pm. AN uneasy truce prevailed on Sunday in Mutsamudu, the chief town of secessionist Anjouan in the Comoros, after a week’s fighting between rival militias that has claimed at least 60 lives. Gunfire had broken out on Saturday night, killing at least one person, whose body was found in the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 6.00pm. SOUTH Africa is set to join the international community in a drive to combat drug trafficking when it on Monday signs a United Nations convention specifically formulated to deal with the growing problem of international drug trafficking. South Africa will become the 149th country to join the 1988 United […]

ROBERT SMITH, Melbourne |Sunday 9.00pm. The International team romped to victory Sunday in the Presidents Cup to lift the trophy for the first time, inflicting the heaviest defeat ever suffered by the star-studded US team. In steady rain after two heatwave days, the Internationals drawn from all over the world except Europe powered home to […]