THURSDAY, 12.30PM: TWO penalty tries given against the Northern Bulls cost them the match against Welsh champs Swansea on Wednesday night. The game, which was played on Swansea’s home turf and was decided in driving rain, was frequently interrupted for a total of 22 penalties — 18 going against the Bulls. Springbok scrumhalf Dan van […]

THURSDAY, 5.45PM: THE Mpumalanga portfolio committee for public accounts berated the province’s legislature on Thursday after it failed to explain mismanagement, inefficiency and financial irregularities over the last two years. After provincial auditor-general Douglas Maphiri told the committee that the legislature had failed to address many problems of uncontrolled expenditure and waste reported by the […]

IN BRIEF MORE CAPE SHOOTINGS A MAN was killed and four others injured in a drive-by shooting attack on a house in Woodstock, Cape Town on Thursday — the second such attack on the house this week. The house came under attack in similar fashion on Sunday. The attack led to the death of Ismael […]

THURSDAY 3.30PM: A DISMAL future is predicted for world food supplies by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. In his report for 1997, FAO director-general Jacques Diouf identified the increase in frequency and severity of disasters caused by war and climate as the likely causes. Diouf said that since the 1960s, the […]

WEDNESDAY, 6.OOPM THE Zimbabwe air force says it will patrol the Limpopo River frontier with helicopter patrols, following the deaths of 36 people attempting to swim the river to South Africa last weekend (see below). WEDNESDAY, 2.OOPM TWENTY NINE members of a Zimbabwe sect followed the words of a “prophet” and swam in to the […]

WEDNESDAY, 12.30PM: NAMIBIAN Coach Rusten Mogane has warned his Bafana Bafana counterpart Jomo Sono not to underestimate his team when they meet in a Cosafa cup clash in Windhoek next Saturday. Mogane yesterday said he believed that the exclusion of experienced players like Doc Khumalo, Eric Tinkler and Shoes Moshoeu could prove costly to Bafana […]

WEDNESDAY, 5.30PM: The JSE all share index ended near the day’s highs, encouraged by a stronger rand and gold price. Upward movements on the Dow Jones and Hang Send indices, ending on 7 723,13 on Tuesday and at 9 226,55 on Wednesday respectively were supportive. At the close the financial index was up 256,1 points […]

IN BRIEF BANDA’S DEAD, BUT ON TRIAL FORMER Malawian President Hastings Banda died in November — but he is still facing fraud charges. Malawi’s Supreme Court is to hear a state appeal next week against the dismissal of fraud charges against Banda, accused last year of theft of $10-million of funds from a public trust […]

TUESDAY, 11.30AM: SHAREHOLDERS in Gold Fields of SA, Gencor, Oryx, Beatrix, New Wits and Kloof threw their support behind the scheme of arrangement for Goldco on Tuesday. Alan Wright, the proposed deputy chairman of Goldco said the more than 90% of shareholders in support of the new company demonstrated massive confidence in Goldco. However, markets […]

FIRST NATIONAL BANK, banker to seven of the nine provinces, is collecting interest on R2-billion in overdrafts, the Business Day reported on Wednesday. The debt is probably at the prime overdraft rate of 19,25%, considerably more than the usual rate for government borrowing, which is below 14%. KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, currently defaulting on […]