BRITISH Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said he will use a meeting of Commonwealth foreign ministers in London on Tuesday to exert pressure on Zimbabwe to ease the political crisis in the country. But the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group is expected to stop short of sanctions to force Zimbabwe to end political violence and intimidation and […]
SOUTH Africa’s Amanda Coetzer, a wildcard entry, got off to a winning start in the $535000-dollar WTA tournament in Hamburg on Tuesday beating Romania’s Ruxandra Dragomir 6-0, 6-4. Coetzer, who was seeded eighth after an injury-related withdrawal by Russian Elena Likhovtseva, only struggled early in the second set when she had to come back from […]
ZIMBABWE’S premier trade show opened on Monday in Bulawayo, the country’s second largest city, with almost half of its usual foreign exhibitors absent this year. The number of foreign countries whose firms are represented has dropped from 28 last year to 17 this year, Graham Rowe, the general manager of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair […]
BANGLADESH cricket coach Eddie Barlow, who suffered a brain haemorrhage at the weekend, will be flown to Singapore for an examination, his wife said on Tuesday. A doctor at the Combined Military Hospital where Barlow is being treated said the South African’s condition was stable. “The Bangladesh Cricket Board is sending my husband to Singapore […]
TWO white-hot hunks of metal which crashed to earth in South Africa last week are debris from a US rocket launched four years ago. The first, weighing around 30 kilograms, landed on a farm near Cape Town on Thursday; the other, estimated to weigh about 100 kilograms on a nearby farm the following day. Nasa […]
ALGERIAN club USMA have been disqualified from the African Cup Winners’ Cup for fielding an ineligible player during the first round. African Football Confederation spokesman Dr Viken Djizmedjian said Monday that USMA used Issaka Coulibaly against JS Tenere of Niger without an international transfer certificate from Burkina Faso. Tenere, who lost the tie 2-1 on […]
DEON POTGIETER, Johannesburg | Tuesday 5.30pm MIKE Bernardo’s on-again off-again WBF heavyweight world title fight is on again. Bernardo, a former kick boxing world champion will meet Britain’s Wayne Llewellyn on May 12 for the vacant title in Hungary. Following numerous futile attempts by promoter Thinus Strydom to secure local sponsorship and television coverage for […]
SWITZERLAND has said that it began selling off excess gold reserves on May 1, but analysts and traders expect little price reaction from the market which they say is been poised ready to absorb the sales. Last week, the Swiss National Bank reaffirmed plans to start selling 1300 tons, about half its gold reserves, as […]
THE International Committee of the Red Cross on Tuesday said it has begun delivering food by plane from Nairobi to Dire Dawa in Ethiopia to help victims of drought there. The ICRC said the deliveries will be made daily. The food is destined for people in Gudis and other villages in the southeastern Imi district, […]
STAKEHOLDERS in the West African Gas Pipeline project will take a final investment decision on the project within the next nine months, a leading Ghanaian energy official said on Thursday. Ghana, Nigeria, Benin and Togo are jointly sponsoring the $400-million pipeline project which entails construction of over 600 km of pipeline that will supply about […]
JONAH Lomu failed on Tuesday to have a two-match ban for a dangerous tackle overturned. All Black winger Lomu, cited after a Super 12 match between the Wellington Hurricanes and New South Wales Waratahs in Sydney on Saturday, said he was disappointed with the verdict. Lomu went to the Australian Rugby Union’s headquarters hopeful of […]
RESTRUCTURING of the Liberia’s national army began this week with a process of “redocumentation”. Chairman of the 28 member Restructuring Commission Blamo Nelson said the exercise will determine the present strength of the army and “who is in the army.” “All persons mobilized into the army in the wake of the December 24, 1989 incursion […]
THE New Zealand soccer team to play Bafana Bafana in a two-leg Olympic qualifier was announced on Tuesday. Overseas-based New Zealand players players who missed the 4-0 defeat to Japan in March return for the matches at North Harbour Stadium on May 19 and South Africa on May 27. Defender John Foundoulakis, midfielder Raffaele De […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Tuesday 8.00pm. MILITANT self-styled war veterans waited in their hundreds outside the High Court in Harare the entire day on Tuesday, while their leader, Chenjerai Hitler Hunzvi, stood trial for alleged fraud. The veterans, joined by youths dressed in T-shirts of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party, cheered […]
FIVE Kenyan soldiers with the UN peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone were abducted on Tuesday from the eastern town of Magburaka by former rebels, UN officials in Freetown said, after announcing an unspecified number of UN soldiers had been kidnapped in two other attacks. Force commander Vijay Jetley said in a statement on the other […]
THE ACT Brumbies were stripped further of their forward strength with news on Tuesday that back-row enforcer Owen Finegan is out of rugby for six months. Finegan will undergo surgery next week on his left knee after a scan revealed the 26-Test veteran and World Cup winner tore his medial and cruciate ligaments against the […]
JOHN MEHAFFEY, London | Tuesday 2.25am INTERNATIONAL cricket chiefs gathered behind closed doors at Lord’s on Tuesday to discuss match-fixing allegations threatening the game’s credibility. Eighteen International Cricket Council (ICC) delegates will meet for two days in an emergency meeting triggered by South African captain Hansie Cronje’s confession that he took money from a bookmaker. […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria, Jolo | 8.00pm. THE South African government on Tuesday urged Manila to take no action that could endanger 21 hostages, two of them South African, who are being held by Muslim rebels on an island in the Philippines. Sipho Pityana, the director general of the foreign ministry, said in Pretoria: “Nothing should […]
ALLAN SECCOMBE, Johannesburg | Friday 3.40pm. WORLD number one gold producer AngloGold said on Friday it will close or sell three ageing gold mines after reporting weaker profits for the March quarter. A weak gold price and production problems in South Africa, Australia and North America overshadowed good performances from mines in South America, Mali […]
ANDREW MUCHINERIPI, Pretoria | Monday 3.20pm AMAZULU conceded a soft, first-half goal at Free State Stars on Sunday that settled a crucial Castle Premiership match and could condemn the Durban club to First Division football next season. When Stars were awarded a free kick outside the penalty area there appeared to be no immediate threat, […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Monday 4.00pm. ZIMBABWE’S worsening political turmoil is having an alarming impact on business confidence in South Africa, the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob) said on Monday. “All indications are that business confidence in South Africa is dropping at an alarming rate,” Sacob head Kevin Wakeford said. He was speaking from […]
OVER 1300 Volkswagen workers dismissed from the Uitenhage plant in February have applied for arbitration after failed attempts at conciliation earlier this month. The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration on Tuesday said that the arbitration process will take place from May 15 to May 19 at the CCMA’s offices in Port Elizabeth. The dismissed […]
PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki, who is leading a regional diplomatic effort to resolve Zimbabwe’s political turmoil, will visit the country to open a trade fair on Friday. Mbeki has avoided taking a strong public stand against the occupation of hundreds of Zimbabwe’s commercial, white-owned farms by self-styled veterans of the country’s independence war. Last week he […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 4.30pm. THE Johannesburg Stock Exchange ended slightly stronger on Friday, in thin trade, largely due to the spate of public holidays over the past week. The rand also recovered some of Thursday’s losses when it plunged to R6,86, and by late afternoon was trading at R6,82 to the dollar. The […]
THE International Cricket Council will invite players and officials to Lords to hand over any information they have on match-fixing and corruption in the game – with the promise of an amnesty for anyone coming forward. The emergency meeting on Tuesday follows an appeal by Lord MacLaurin, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, […]
ANDREW MUCHINERIPI, Pretoria | Monday 11.00am. SOUTH Africa will have only themselves to blame if they fail to reach the 2002 World Cup finals in Japan and South Korea by finishing ahead of Burkina Faso, Guinea, Malawi and Zimbabwe in Group E. Bafana Bafana should win their four home matches and have nothing to fear […]
SOUTH Africa’s cricketers face life bans from the game for consorting with bookmakers under the terms of new player contracts. “The South African players’ new contracts contain three pages devoted entirely to all forms of dealing with bookmakers,” the Sunday Times reported. “These include a ban on betting, inducing other players to become involved, contriving […]
ANDY CAPOSTAGNO, Johannesburg | Monday 12.00pm THE ninth round of the Super 12 revealed the gulf between winners and losers. In Christchurch the Bulls let in 11 tries against the Crusaders and appeared simply to throw in the towel. In Bloemfontein the Cats fought all the way and kept their line intact through the final […]
THE Department of Civil Aviation is investigating two large metal balls that mysteriously fell out of the sky and onto farmland in the Western Cape in the past few days. The Star reports that astronomers said the balls could be part of a decaying satellite and that Nasa has predicted that parts of a Pegasus […]
DEON POTGIETER, Johannesburg | Monday 4.00pm It’s official. South Africa’s Frans Botha will climb through the ropes to face Lennox Lewis on July 15. Lewis’s promoter, Panos Eliades confirmed that Botha will face Lewis for the undisputed heavyweight world title in London. “He’s alright as a fighter, he should give me an interesting fight,” said […]
FORMER South African cricketer and Bangladesh coach Eddie Barlow remains under close observation after collapsing on Saturday with a brain haemorrhage. “Barlow has been kept under close observation, but he may take two to three months to recover,” doctor Brigadier M.A. Salam of the Combined Military Hospital said on Monday. He added: “The government is […]
MEMBERS of a small doomsday cult in the Eastern Cape province have quit work and taken their children out of school to wait for Jesus. The cult, which has no name, has between 70 and 100 members, most of whom live at their church, a tiny house in a squatter settlement outside the town of […]