POLICE in the Democratic Republic of Congo briefly detained the Togolese ambassador Mama Gnofang after finding a large stash of Congolese francs in his limousine. Gnofang was stopped on Thursday at Ngobila port on the river Congo as he prepared to cross to Brazzaville in neighbouring Congo, a source at the port said. Security officials […]
ANDREW MUCHINERIPI, Johannesburg | Saturday 4.40pm. Orlando Pirates 1 Bloemfontein Celtic 0 MIDFIELD workaholic Brandon Silent scored his first goal of the season on Saturday to keep Orlando Pirates in the chase for the Castle Premiership title at rain-soaked FNB Stadium. Silent struck after 16 minutes of a close contest, slamming a right-foot shot past […]
POLICE are urging Johannesburg motorists not to stop their cars on the N1 near Mondeor after three drivers were murdered in seperate incidents this week. Most recently, Themba Daniel Mafume, 41, a Sebokeng resident, was murdered after he got out of his car to fix a tire. The modus operandi of the killers is to […]
NAMIBIAN President Sam Nujoma on Sunday announced his new cabinet, little changed from the team which helped him to his third five-year term with a sizeable majority in December’s elections. Nujoma and the new cabinet — trimmed down to 22 from 25 posts — will be sworn in on Tuesday during Namibia’s tenth independence anniversary […]
SOME 70 investigators from the Directorate of Special Investigations, also known as the Scorpions, will be trained at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia over the next three months, US Ambassador to South Africa Delano Lewis announced on Thursday. Lewis said the 70 investigators will receive the same training as their FBI counterparts. They will […]
ETHIOPIAN press reports say 186 people suspected of starting huge forest fires that have raged for over a month in southern Ethiopia will appear in court early next week. The suspects were arrested at the end of February and are still in detention. Two fires broke out 35 days ago in the Borena and Bale […]
DAVID SHAPSHAK, Cape Town | Saturday 7.00pm. THE ACT Brumbies recorded their first win on South African soil with a four try to none 29-15 win over the Stormers at Newlands on Saturday. Flanker Owen Finegan set up a solid platform with two first half tries and Stirling Mortlock converted the second try just before […]
EMSIE FERREIRA, Pretoria | Friday 8.30pm. THREE Cabinet ministers left on Friday for a weekend of talks in the Democratic Republic of Congo designed to mend fences between the two countries. Relations between DRC President Laurent Kabila and the South African government are frosty, with the embattled president accusing Pretoria of hypocritically calling for a […]
NIGERIAN striker Victor Ikpeba was slammed with a $7500 fine by Borussia Dortmund coach Bernd Krauss for remarks made to Sport-Bild magazine on Tuesday. Ikpeba unleashed a scathing attack on his team-mates, saying: “Many players here are at the end of their careers and don’t have the necessary ambition to succeed.” When asked if he […]
THERE has been a major shake-up in the Griquas rugby team that will play Namibia in Windhoek on Saturday. A number of regulars, including hooker and skipper, Luther Bakkes, prop De Waal Venter, loose forward Pierre Uys, former Namibian forward Herman Lintvelt and scrum-half Christoff Lotter find themselves on the reserve bench. A number of […]
ITALY’S Max Biaggi endured a painful start to the world 500cc championship season in Friday’s first qualifying session for the South African Grand Prix. Biaggi, winner of last year’s race at the Phakisa Freeway circuit, was clearly feeling the effects of a recent groin injury as he finished ninth fastest in one minute 38.584 seconds. […]
MORE than 100 members of a Doomsday cult in southwestern Uganda died when they locked themselves in their makeshift church and set it ablaze in an apparent ritual mass suicide. “Some believers locked themselves in their makeshift church and many people died. The number is said to be about 100,” said police spokesman Eric Naigambi. […]
THE South African Sevens Rugby team that will take part in the next two legs of the IRB World Sevens’ Series in Hong Kong from 24 to 26 March and Japan from 1 to 2 April was announced in Cape Town on Tuesday. The team will gather in Cape Town for a four-day training camp […]
TEST centres Tim Horan and Daniel Herbert failed fitness tests to deliver a major blow to Queensland on the eve of Saturday’s Super 12 match against reigning champions Canterbury. Horan was ruled out with a foot injury while Herbert was forced out with a calf problem. The Reds have lost their opening two games of […]
GRANT Muller took a one shot lead as South Africans dominated the opening round of the Vodacom Tour’s Cock of the North tournament at the Ndola Golf Club on Thursday. Muller produced a steady round of 70 (three-under par) in testing conditions. Muller, who is playing as a fulltime professional this year after trying to […]
AUTHORITIES in Liberia closed down the independent Star Radio and suspended broadcast by the Catholic-run Radio Veritas, accusing them of abusing press freedom and freedom of speech on Wednesday. A government statement broadcast on President Charles Taylor’s private radio station blamed “security threats created by agents and provocateurs (sic) using the news media to abuse […]
There is doubt about who really occupies supposed war graves at Brandfort in the Free State Stefaans Brmmer Leon de Beer, a former MP who was jailed for cheating his way to Parliament, has emerged as a central figure in a controversy undermining three years of planned Anglo-Boer South African War commemorations. The centenary commemorations […]
Sarah Bullen TAKING STOCK Any niggling doubts that global investors have actually gone bananas would have been fairly decisively cleared up by recent media footage from Hong Kong. The images showed hundreds and thousands of people queuing and jostling in lines that snaked around countless city blocks. The excited, bordering on belligerent, throngs were not […]
Paul Kirk In the strangest address to the KwaZulu- Natal legislature for years, Dumisane Makhaye, the provincial housing MEC and an African National Congress national executive committee member, this week turned a speech on racism into a play recital. The play, an untitled Makhaye production, is so disjointed as to be barely comprehensible, but has […]
Riaan Wolmarans CD OFTHEWEEK Last weekend’s Select event at Carfax in Johannesburg was superb. It was amazingly refreshing to move to the sexy French house sounds as played by DJs Eric Rug, Deep and Pepe Bradock, as opposed to the usual hectic, commercial house one hears at all the other dance events. Now there’s a […]
sake’ Jean Evans I don’t stand to gain anything by writing my story. Well, maybe I do! I want to know that Professor Werner Bezwoda will continue to be my doctor and that his life’s dedication to the treatment of cancer is not wasted. When I was 34-years old, with a toddler of just two […]
THE ex-Speaker of Swaziland’s Parliament is suing the government after he resigned after stealing cow dung from the king’s kraal. Mgabhi Dlamini quit on Wednesday after a motion to remove him failed narrowly to secure the necessary two-thirds majority in the House. He was, however, barred from Parliament for a month on the king’s orders. […]
South African National Parks denies plans to cull elephants despite documented evidence to the contrary Fiona Macleod South African National Parks (SANP) and the Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism this week vociferously denied plans to resume culling elephants in the Kruger National Park, despite documentary evidence that the park proposes to cull between 400 […]
Ebrahim Harvey CROSSFIRE The South African situation is no longer simply black and white. Since 1994 our situation has acquired a much more complex and dynamic character. Yet, unfortunately, a narrow, inward-looking, simplistic and unscientific approach manifested itself at last week’s South African Human Rights Commission (HRC) inquiry into racism in the media. As the […]
I’m putting the following comments at the top of this week’s column in the obscure hope that someone, somewhere in M-Net might pay attention to them. As I say it’s an obscure hope. M-Net, as a rule, don’t pay much attention to ought but their own council. They certainly don’t demonstrate much discernible consideration for […]
Cedric Mason SPIRITLEVEL South Africa suffers from spiritual malnutrition. Flood and drought have sapped physical strength and produced grim pictures of starving bodies and hopeless eyes. Lack of spiritual strength causes the grim picture of crime and corruption, murder and rape, and poverty and violence that is sucking the hope out of our young nation. […]
The ANC seems to be wooing the opposition in preparation for local government elections Peter Dickson and Jaspreet Kindra The African National Congress this week stepped up efforts to neutralise the fragile opposition in the country in preparation for the November local government elections. In the Eastern Cape, ANC Premier Makhenkesi Stofile told the New […]
SOME 175 new cases of Trypanosomiasis – commonly known as sleeping sickness – were diagnosed in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s western Bas-Congo province last year. According to the chief medical officer at the disease’s control office in Kinshasa, 152050 people had been checked for the disease which is spread by the tsetse fly. The […]
Stefaans Brmmer and Inigo Gilmore South Africa’s failure to come clean on a massacre pulled off by its paratroopers 18 months ago in Lesotho is bedevilling relations between Pretoria and the mountain kingdom’s popular royal family. Little is known about the skirmish at Katse Dam where 17 Lesotho and two South African soldiers died. Paratroopers […]
Justin Arenstein The mystery man behind Mpumalanga’s R1,3- billion promissory note deal, international fugitive Moshe Regenstreich, has been linked to illegal trade in chemical weapons, including deadly mustard and sarin nerve gas. Regenstreich, also known by his Israeli family name of Regev, was blacklisted by the United States Congress and State Department in 1995 after […]
Suren Pillay CROSSFIRE The opening epigraph to Salman Rushdie’s fascinating account of his journey to freshly post-revolution Nicaragua opens with the following limerick: There was a young girl in Nicaragua who smiled as she rode on a jaguar, they returned from the ride, with the girl inside and the smile on the face of the […]
electro-shock Heather Hogan The proposed new Mental Health Care Bill has one striking omission – it fails to deal with one of the most controversial methods of treatment, electro-shock therapy (ECT). Experts this week were sharply divided on the therapy, which is used extensively in South Africa. Those in favour claim it is a life-saver; […]