IN the nineteen sixties and seventies, many South African fighters travelled across the borders to lace up their gloves in our neighbouring countries. This was necessitated by the laws of the day prohibiting black an white fighters from meeting each other in local professional rings. Fortunately those days are long gone and professional boxing is […]
CONSERVATION authorities have shot dead three elephant bulls after they were trapped with no food by strongly flowing rivers. The elephants had escaped from the Kruger National Park in the eastern Mpumlanga province and were trapped between two rivers. The animals were killed because there was not enough food in the area where they were […]
SIMON Gopane, who plays for Jomo Cosmos, will replace Brian Baloyi in Bafana’s World Cup play-off match against Lesotho after Baloyi failed to pass a fitness test at a practise session in Johannesburg on Wednesday. The Kaizer Chiefs keeper is pulled out of Sunday’s crucial first leg qualifier in Maseru after sustaining injuring at his […]
A ROCKFALL has killed three miners working underground at the African Rainbow Minerals gold mine near Welkom in the Free State. Mine spokesman Mike Jooste said on Thursday that the men were killed instantly when the hanging wall above them collapsed due to a seismic tremor measuring 1,6 on the Richter scale. He said their […]
A BABY shot in her mother’s womb is fighting for her life after undergoing emergency surgery, the Star newspaper reports. Twenty three-year-old Leslie Ellerbeck was shot during a botched car-jacking near Johannesburg. She was eight months pregnant, and underwent a Caesarian section delivery. The baby, a girl, was first thought to have only a minor […]
SANTOS held SuperSport United to a 2-2 draw in a thrilling Castle Premier League match at Greenpoint Stadium in Cape Town on Wednesday night. Santos looked better than United all through the match, and it was only SuperSport ‘keeper John Dithebe whose breathtaking saves kept the scored tied. Jean Bang-Penda scored for United in the […]
SOUTH Africa’s 2006 World Cup bid committee are set to make a vital presentation to senior African diplomats in Addis Ababa next week as the bid to host the soccer showcase reaches fever pitch. Danny Jordaan, CEO of the South African bid committee will meet with Salim Ahmed Salim, Organisation of African Unity secretary general, […]
THE Reserve Bank began a two-day monetary policy meeting on Wednesday, with markets expecting it to leave interest rates on hold as lower oil prices point to subsiding domestic inflation pressures. The Bank will make an announcent when its monetary policy committee, which normally meets every six weeks, ends the current meeting early on Thursday […]
SOUTH African police have arrested more than 13000 suspected criminals in a five-day operation to clean up 124 crime hotspots, the national commissioner’s office said on Wednesday. Police have also seized more than 370 illegal guns and 550 stolen vehicles in the operation between March 28 and April 1. The operation is the first in […]
OIL prices rebounded slightly in London trading on Thursday, following the weakened prices of recent sessions. The price of Brent North Sea quality oil for May delivery was 33 cents higher at $24,08 dollars a barrel. In New York on Wednesday, the price of light sweet crude benchmark oil for delivery in May closed 38 […]
A NIGERIAN teenager has burnt herself to death in protest at a marriage imposed on her by her father. Binta Gambo, 18, set herself on fire on Monday in despair at the marriage forced on her two months ago. Kano Radio Corporation said. Gambo, from Mararrabar Musawa in Katsina State, northern Nigeria had apparently told […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 1.30pm. THE struggle to represent Africa at the 2002 World Cup finals in Japan and South Korea begins this weekend with 23 first-leg preliminary matches involving the mighty and the minnows, including South Africa’s Bafana Bafana who face Lesotho in Maseru. The build-up has, inevitably, been marred by club-versus-country […]
DESPITE having wild animals roaming within its boundaries, Marloth Park municipality has lost its bid to be incorporated into the neighbouring Kruger National Park. Instead, the Demarcation Board has decided to link it with the small towns of Komatipoort and Malelane in Mpumalanga, and four rural areas in Nkomazi. Marloth Park is part of a […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Thursday 2.40pm ZIMBABWE has holdings of foreign exchange cover less than one day’s imports, an opposition economist said said. Opposition secretary for economic affairs, Eddie Cross, said the critical shortage of foreign exchange is a the result of “gross mismanagement.” “Against a normal target of two to three months of import […]
The Appeal Court in Bloemfontein on Thursday refused alleged Hard Livings gang members, Solomon Staggie and Desmond Holland leave to appeal against their convictions for murdering three members of a rival gang in February 1998. Staggie and Holland were found guilty in the Cape Town High Court last year for murdering Riyaan Samsodien, Clinton Wyngaardt […]
ABOUT 3000 trade unionists are expected to march through the streets of Durban on Wednesday, as part of the World March of Women against poverty and violence. The march is being organised jointly by the International Confederation of Free Trade Union, which is holding its 17th World Congress in Durban, and its South African affiliates, […]
THE boxing world may again see a return to 15-round fights after WBU President Jon Robinson suggested at the WBU boxing convention held in Cape Town that championship fights should again be decided over 15 rounds. Robinson said that there is no proof that 15 round fights are any more detrimental to boxers than 12 […]
A RECENT ambush by Unita rebels on a civilian convoy in Angola killed 19 people and wounded 11, the Portuguese agency Lusa said on Tuesday. Angolan national police spokesman Castro Hilario told Lusa the attack occurred on Friday in Lunda Norte province, and that the dead include five soldiers escorting the convoy of 12 vehicles […]
ARCHBISHOP Desmond Tutu had harsh words for Zimbabwe’s embattled President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday during a visit to Sweden, calling him a “caricature” of an African leader. “He’s almost a caricature of all the things people think black African leaders do. He seems to be wanting to make a cartoon of himself,” Tutu said. Tutu, […]
THE government has granted ministers of the Church of Scientology the right to perform marriages, ending a 40-year battle by Scientologists for legalisation of their weddings. Home Affairs department spokesman Hennie Meyer said 12 Scientology ministers had been granted the right and it would be granted to others on application. The Reverend Heber Jentzsch, president […]
THE rand on Wednesday weakened back to 18-month lows touched last week, with traders citing the impact of volatility on world markets, which has triggered a steep slide in domestic shares, and political turmoil in neighboring Zimbabwe. At 12noon, the rand had firmed slightly to R6,58 to the dollar after touching R6,60 earlier in thin […]
STEVEN MANN, Cape Town | Tuesday 6.30pm. ENVIRONMENTAL Affairs and Tourism Minister Valli Moosa on Tuesday defended South Africa’s proposals to amend the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) to enable it sell off stockpiled ivory, saying there is no evidence to suggest it will encourage poaching. “We are not in favour of […]
THE rand, should recover strongly by the end of 2002, which is the horizon for the government’s newly-introduced inflation targets, Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni said on Tuesday. “The inflation target is set for the period between now and the end of the calender year 2002,” he said during radio phone-in show.”So in between that […]
MINISTER of Public Enterprises Jeff Radebe announced on Tuesday that former Eskom deputy CEO Bongani Khumalo has joined the Office of the Presidency. Khumalo will join the Deputy-President’s office and will be in charge of a strategy for rural development and an HIV/Aids awareness programme.
MORE than 800 children are killed by gunfire in South Africa each year, an anti-gun activist told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday. “The equivalent of an entire school is wiped out by guns each year,” David Newby, Western Cape chairman of Gun Free South Africa, told the National Assembly’s portfolio committee on education, quoting police […]
ARMY Commanders on Tuesday started negotiations in Kampala in an attempt to find solutions to the violation of the ceasefire agreement that was launched to restore peace to the war-torn country. The negotiations are being run under the auspices of the Joint Military Commission — an umbrella body formed last year following a Zambian-mediated peace […]
MINISTERS from France and the CFA franc zone began a meeting in the Equatorial Guinea capital Malabo on Tuesday at which they will discuss French efforts to reduce debt in the zone. The meeting was opened by Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema who called on France to help its African partners in the zone. […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Braamfontein | Tuesday 7.15pm BLACK journalists control the executive editorial decision-making of the majority of mainstream white-owned and controlled newspapers and the news services of both the public and private commercial broadcasters, the South African Human Rights Commission heard on Tuesday. Making a submission into the HRC’s public hearings on racism, which resumed […]
THE conflict between Chelsea and the Nigerian Football Association seems to have been resolved after the club won its battle to play Celstine Babayaro in Wednesday’s crunch Champions Cup quarterfinal against Barcelona, despite Babayaro having to play for his country in a World Cup qualifier over the weekend. Chelsea had to obtain permission from the […]
THE gold price fell on Tuesday after Austria’s central bank announced that it has sold 30 tons of gold and is planning further sales. Prices are around their lowest levels since December 1999 when the Dutch central bank announced plans to sell part of its gold reserves and following Bank of England gold auctions. On […]
DEPUTY President Jacob Zuma is attending the opening of the 17th world congress of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions’ in Durban. The confederation, with its 125 million members, has drawn over a 1000 trade union leaders for the congress titled “Globalising Social Justice in the 21st Century”. The participants will spend the week […]
POLICE in Tanzania’s semi-autonomous islands of Zanzibar and Pemba on Monday briefly detained opposition leader Seif Shariff Hamad. The privately-owned Alasiri tabloid reported that Hamad, secretary general of Zanzibar’s main opposition party, the Civic United Front, was detained shortly after the high court here adjourned the trial of 18 CUF members charged with treason. It […]