Staff Reporter

FIRE has forced the plane of Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema to make an emergency landing at Niamey airport before being engulfed in flames, aviation authorities here said. Eyadema was not onboard, nor was any other Togolese dignitary. Ten people, including eight crew, were onboard, and two people were slightly injured in the incident. The aircraft […]

A SWISS judge investigating the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars to Switzerland by the regime of the late Sani Abacha has questioned his son, Mohammed Abacha. Judge George Zecchin arrived in Nigeria and met Abacha after he was flown to Abuja from Lagos where he is currently detained on unrelated murder charges. A […]

IDA JACOBS, Washington | Saturday EASTERN Cape struggle hero Mkhuseli Jack has been honoured at the American premiere of a highly acclaimed documentary for his part in a peaceful boycott which the film makers say changed the course of South African history in the 20th century. Jack, who was specially flown to Washington DC for […]

SOUTH Africa has offered to hand over bank details of disgraced former cricket skipper Hansie Cronje to Delhi police investigating a match-fixing scandal, say officials. Shamilla Batohi, the chief prosecutor in the King Commission probing the Cronje affair, has also agreed to send details of telephone calls made by Cronje to bookies in India and […]

THE Pan Africanist Congress in the Western Cape is to hold a commemmoration service for Tempe military base killer Lieutenant Sibusiso Madubela, who last September shot dead eight white colleagues before he was killed. A PAC pamphlet advertising the event features a photograph of Madubela in uniform and concludes with the phrase: “One Oppressor, One […]

THE four accused in the Delmas incest case are to appear in court again today to face charges relating a 16-year relationship between a brother and sister. Robert Fedder, 40, and his 32-year old sister, Heibrecht Kamffer, were arrested in July for allegedly having had an incestuous relationship for the past 16 years. They have […]

THE RECENT grenade attack on the headquarters of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party was staged by an undercover police officer assigned to infiltrate the party, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has alleged.”The evidence in our possession clearly points to the involvement of people in the highest offices of government in a […]

MASSIVE irregularities in Ghana’s voter register have appeared 10 weeks before general elections in the country, says electoral commissioner Kwado Afari Gyan. The lists include 1,5m people more than are eligible to votein the elections, scheduled for December 7. The commissioner said that while a population census held in Ghana earlier this year put the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Pietermaritzburg | Sunday SOUTH African agriculture authorities have expressed fears that the current outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in KwaZulu Natal could be as disastrous as “mad cow” disease was for Britain a few years ago after 16 magisterial districts were declared as foot-and-mouth disease control areas. Authorities have asked for more police and […]

A NORTHERN Province man and his wife have appeared in court for allegedly raping a 14-year-old girl in an attempt to “teach her to be a woman”. The man, 43, and his 42-year-old wife, who is accused of holding the teenager down during the rape, were not asked to plead in the Ritavi Magistrate’s Court […]

HOWARD BARRELL, Johannesburg | Friday DEEP concern is spreading through the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and its parliamentary caucus over the corner into which President Thabo Mbeki has led the party and the government over HIV/Aids. Most ruling party MPs and senior ANC members approached this week privately said the HIV/Aids fiasco raised serious […]

CHARLES MANGWIRO, Quelimane | Friday THE number two leader in Mozambique’s powerful official opposition party, Renamo, has been axed for allegedly betraying party leader Afonso Dlhakama in return for financial reward from the ruling Frelimo party. Raul Domingos, Dlhakama’s right-hand man in Renamo, was formally expelled from the party by Renamo’s national council meeting in […]

BELINDA BERESFORD, Johannesburg | Friday IT’S a great mystery: why are South Africans, a group with a rich heritage of protest, not toyi-toying at the petrol pumps and causing chaos across the country, like the Europeans? After all, the British, renowned for their tolerance, have caused the Labour Party’s juggernaut to falter because of a […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT AND AFP, Durban | Saturday THE outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the Kwazulu Natal Midlands – which has seen six countries imposing bans on South African meat and livestock – has spread to a neighbouring farm in spite of desperate efforts to contain the disease. A cow tested positive for the highly infectious […]

Simon Kuper For reasons too complex to explain, I have just spent a few weeks in Ghana. It proved an excellent place to watch two other West African countries, Cameroon and Nigeria, reach the quarterfinals of the Olympic tournament, with Cameroon going on to win the event on a penalty shoot-out against Spain. Most Ghanaians […]

A permanent exhibition at Pretoria University is giving the public access to remains of this ancient civilisation Catarina Weinek The University of Pretoria is custodian of some of South Africa’s greatest cultural objects: the collection of items excavated since 1934 from the archaeological sites, Mapungubwe and K2, on a farm named Greefswald on the border […]

been Neal Collins After the dazzling closing ceremony, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph said goodbye in 38 languages, including Zulu and Afrikaans. Which got me thinking. What if we were saying salani kahle Sydney 2000, sawubona Cape Town 2004? It makes you think what a Games like this could have done for the rainbow nation, had Cape […]

Andrew Muchineripi soccer It has not been the greatest of years for Southern Africa countries when it came to bidding for football tournaments, with South Africa, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe experiencing the pain of rejection. The most bitter blow came in July when Germany pipped South Africa 12-11 in controversial circumstances for the right to […]

She’s been the queen of pop for the best part of 20 years. Without her, there would be no Britney Spears or Posh Spice. But why is Madonna, at 42, still churning out records? Julie Burchill First there’s that modish whining noise, like Eeyore having swallowed a synthesiser. Then the lumpen beat that affectionately passes […]

Thebe Mabanga In your ear One of the most interesting features of the South African community radio sector is the campus radio circuit. What began as nothing more than a cafeteria intercom as far back as the 1970s around South African tertiary institutions has now grown into an influential, dynamic force. The benefits of campus […]

Nechama Brodie The Bang-Bang Club by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva (William Heinemann) Contemporary visual theorists have spent decades educating people about “ways of seeing”. Images have become texts, subject to interpretation, evaluation, criticism and judgement. We are expected not just to see, but to actually develop a conscious relationship with the visual media that […]

RankCountryGold Gold equivGold equiv equivper millionper million people GNP adjust NoRankNoRankNo 1Bahamas1.7545.5716.37 2Bulgaria10.0171.2573.59 3Jamaica3.7321.2282.81 4Estonia1.7551.6652.25 5Cuba20.781.8832.08 6Romania18.0110.78201.92 7Latvia2.0461.00121.69 8Belarus8.6190.86171.59 9Azerbaijan2.3410.29371.47 10Hungary13.0131.3061.44 11Georgia2.0530.40311.41 12Ethiopia5.7270.09551.39 13Lithuania3.0380.75211.34 14Barbados0.3711.10101.26 15Moldova1.0590.25411.21 16Trinidad/Tobago1.0591.00121.14 17Kenya4.7290.17491.14 18Kazakstan5.7260.36330.91 19Mozambique1.0590.05640.89 20Slovakia3.3330.67220.84 21Armenia0.7680.17500.81 22Ukraine13.0140.26390.79 23Australia38.442.0220.76 24Slovenia2.0461.00120.64 25Russia60.020.41290.63 26Czech Rep5.0280.50250.50 27Quatar0.3710.55240.45 28Iceland0.3711.10100.45 29Greece9.0180.82180.45 30Norway7.0221.7540.45 Selected 60South Africa2.3410.06620.08 61United States66.610.25420.07

This year’s Smirnoff International Fashion Awards featured a return to design basics Charl Blignaut I was a touch anxious as I settled into my seat for the South African leg of the annual Smirnoff International Fashion Awards at Vodaworld in Midrand last Friday night. It wasn’t the over-abundance of ruthless Pretoria kugels or the Afrikaans […]

The first week of the Olympics has thrown up some pleasant surprises to counter the disappointments Grant Shimmin As I looked down from the media centre overlooking the Sydney International Aquatic Centre’s warm-up pool early on Wednesday evening, Graham Hill walked by, clad in his South African shirt and with a tattoo of the national […]

Thebe Mabanga in your ear I recently had the opportunity to listen to scenario planner Wolfgang Grukel give a talk on his book, Ten lessons from the future. Grukel paints an interesting picture of what life will be like in 2020. When one thinks of radio in its capacity as the country’s most accessible medium, […]

Andrew Muchineripi soccer Let us get one fact straight at the outset: the absence of stars like Zinedine Zidane will not weaken the French assault on South Africa at Ellis Park come Saturday evening. No, I have not been smoking anything stronger than the tobacco my second mother, the minister of health, is trying so […]

Harry Pearson On Saturday I met a man from Ashington who recently moved to Portobello in Edinburgh. He said the first week he was up in Scotland, he was chatting to a local woman he’d met at his running club. By way of introducing him to the area she listed the many celebrities who come […]

Jazz guitarist Jimmy Dludlu has come a long way since cutting his teeth with groups like Loading Zone and Mack Denite Thebe Mabanga There are many sides to Jimmy Dludlu. There is the stylish, celebrated jazz guitarist who strums his custom-made, semi-acoustic guitar to the delight of audiences on either side of the South African […]

Guilt by association chases the world’s fastest woman Duncan Mackay He is a big man and she a slender woman but somehow he always got lost in her shadow. CJ Hunter is the world shot put champion but most know him as the husband of Marion Jones. At the Olympics it was an association that […]

Broadcast rights might be changed by the new boxing Bill Deon Potgieter Section 29 of the new boxing Bill has caused a stir within the boxing fraternity. If passed, it could have major ramifications on the sport as we know it. Some say it would lead to the demise of boxing in South Africa. Others […]

Andy Capostagno rugby If there’s one thing that sportspeople hate it’s the playing of pointless matches. Which should help to explain the simmering discontent about the “new” Currie Cup system. Last week the Lions, the defending champions, put 96 points on the Northern Free State Griffons, a performance that earned them precisely nothing. The Griffons […]

The new chief executive is an ordained minister with strong struggle credentials and a passion for the game Merryman Kunene For an organisation founded on the principle of maximising the value of top soccer in South Africa, the Premier Soccer League (PSL) will be pleased with its progress judging by the kind of sponsorship value […]