Staff Reporter

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Accra | Saturday 8.15pm. BAFANA Bafana finished third in the African Nations Cup on Saturday by beating Tunisia 4-3 on penalties after the teams finished 2-2 in normal time. Each team converted three of their mandatory five kicks and when Ali Zitouni had his kick parried by Andre Arendse, the door opened for […]

BAFANA Bafana coach Trott Moloto is almost certain to be out of a job when his contract expires at the end of the African Nations Cup. Moloto, coach for almost two years, has come under heavy criticism for his 3-5-2 tactics during the 2-0 semi-final defeat by Nigeria on Thursday. South African Football Association president […]

SOUTH Africa is among seven countries exempted from the preliminary rounds of the 2002 African Nations Cup to be hosted by Mali. They will join Nigeria, Cameroon, Tunisia, Algeria, Ghana and Egypt in the category of exempted countries, Confederation of African Football (CAF) media officer Paul Bassey said. He said at the end of the […]

THREE UN officials – including a South African – detained by a pro-government Sudanese militia for the last week were released on Thursday. The three men, the second from the US and the third from Kenya, were accused by the militia of transporting rebel Sudanese People’s Liberation Army commanders in a UN aircraft.

AERO Zambia, a private run airline, has lost its bid in the Supreme Court to have its air permit back following the government’s decision to ground its operations last month. The airline sued the Zambian government after Transport Minister Nkandu Luo refused to renew its permit on the grounds that its equipment did not meet […]

ALMOST 700 metal workers reportedly boycotted a disciplinary hearing at Samancor’s Ferrometal plant in Witbank on Thursday after rejecting a company appointed arbitrator. The factory workers were charged with misconduct after allegedly participating in an unprotected protest action in support of the Congress of South African Trade Union’s job loss campaign last week. The workers, […]

TWENTY-eight people were injured when they leapt from a burning train north of Pretoria on Saturday. The passengers jumped from the moving train after its engine caught fire when an electric cable overhead fell on one of the locomotives, police spokesman Captain George Francis said. Seven of the injured were admitted to the nearby Eugene […]

THE chairman of the Inkatha Freedom Party in Tin Town, Inchanga, and four family members were killed in an ambush in the area on Thursday night. IFP spokesman Velaphi Ndlovu said the ambush was the result of a division within the Tin Town branch on how to deal with the problem of youngsters involved in […]

SOME 22 people drowned when their boat capsized in western Uganda’s Lake Albert earlier this week, police said on Friday. Police spokesman John Kimera said that the accident occurred on Wednesday night when the boat was travelling from Kihoro town in Hoima district to Panyamuru in Nebbi district. The boat reportedly hit submerged metal bars […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Saturday 3.30pm. AJ VENTER has been cleared to play for the Natal Sharks by the Pretoria High Court, which dismissed claims that the star number eight was contractually bound to Ellis Park. “I’m in heaven, I’m just so happy that I can get on with playing rugby now,” said Venter, who […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Saturday 6.00pm THE government is to destroy some 260000 surplus state-owned firearms this year with the help of funding from Norway, defence secretary January Masilela said on Saturday. This follows a decision last year by the country’s National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) not to sell firearms that were acquired by […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Lagos | Saturday 6.00pm. THE stage is set for Nigeria to reclaim their place as the leading football power on the continent by defeating Cameroon in the African Nations Cup final on Sunday. Home advantage gives the Super Eagles a huge psychological advantage with the national team unbeaten at the 60000-seat Surulere Stadium […]

SUSAN NJANJI, Harare | Saturday 7.00pm ECONOMIC hardships and grievances turned out to be the driving force behind most Zimbabweans turning out to cast their ballots on Saturday, the first day of a referendum to accept or reject a new constitution. It would allow the government to seize land from white commercial farmers for redistribution […]

THE United States said it has reached agreement with the West African nation Burkina Faso on an “open skies” pact that will allow unrestricted air service between the two countries. US Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater said the agreement was initialed in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on Wednesday and marked the first agreement between the United States […]

Paul Kirk The owner of The Ranch this week claimed that top policemen had frequented his establishment for free sex before last week’s raid on Johannesburg’s premier high- class brothel. The Ranch’s owner, Andrew Phillips, who has been released on R10E000 bail, said that in addition to using the facilities for free, senior officers struck […]

Howard Barrell and Barry Streek While the government has scorned talk of an economic “big bang” and sought to dampen expectations this week, statements by President Thabo Mbeki and his Cabinet colleagues reveal that they are initiating far-reaching changes designed to propel the economy to a higher growth path. Mbeki’s State of the Nation address […]

Ivor Powell and Heather Hogan It is all systems go for apocalypse now according to the Seventh Day Adventist Church as it surveys the devastation of upcountry floods and, before them, the coastal fires that ravaged South Africa. “There is great truth in these things. We are living in prophetic times,” church representative Eddie Harris […]

Chris McGreal The family of the executed Nigerian writer, Ken Saro-Wiwa, is at odds with the organisation he once led over plans to exhume and rebury him and eight other Ogoni activists hanged after a show trial in 1995. Saro-Wiwa’s eldest son, Ken Wiwa, has objected to the creation of a “burial committee” by the […]

TOP German cyclist Jan Ullrich heads a strong field for South Africa’s premier cycling event, the Vodacom Rapport Tour, which starts in Cape Town on Friday and ends on February 19. The 26-year-old Ullrich, 1999 Tour of Spain and 1997 Tour de France winner, leads the Deutsche Telekom team, one of 15 six-member teams competing […]

Jubie Matlou If the newly built Rockey Street Market in Yeoville is anything to go by, then the face of informal and street trading is set to undergo an unprecedented fundamental change. Informal and street trading in Johannesburg has a rich history that is interlinked with the country’s migratory labour system just before the turn […]

A travelling exhibition focuses on history’s silent witnesses, writes Alex Sudheim The crowd: that swollen, seething animal, comes to life when human beings swarm together in a single unity of desire. As an organism the crowd works its seduction by promising the surrender of individual will to the mass. Individuals, no longer responsible for their […]

Neil Manthorp Cricket Will out-of-form Hansie Cronje drop himself for tomorrow’s final of the Standard Bank triangular series? The answer, of course, is no. The captain might be struggling badly with the bat but he will as surely lead his team out at the Wanderers on Saturday as the sun will come up. Mind you, […]

There was a good deal to commend in President Thabo Mbeki’s speech opening Parliament this month. But in one particular at least he fell woefully short of giving South Africans the reasoned leadership and guidance that the State of the Nation address is meant to embody. This is the issue of the HIV/Aids pandemic, identified […]

South Africa may have as many as 20 000 Internet addicts, writes Howard Barrell Any South African company whose employees are linked to the Internet probably has at least one middle or senior manager suffering from some form of Internet addiction. And that may well be an underestimate of the problem, according to a number […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Friday 8.00pm South Africa is poised to rescue Zimbabwe from its crippling fuel and looming electricity energy shortages, a Zimbabwean cabinet minister said on Friday. Nathan Shamuyarira said at the end of talks between President Thabo Mbeki and Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe in Harare on Friday that they discussed the country’s […]

Ebrahim Harvey CROSSFIRE Unlike the earlier caution and equivocation of the ruling party, President Thabo Mbeki has recently openly called for the growth of a black capitalist class in order to provide greater stability and economic growth. But what are the real prospects for this development ? Black capitalism has arrived too late on the […]

Q & A Manaka Ranaka is the latest addition to the cast of Isidingo (SABC3, Monday to Thursday at 18.30pm). The blond, dreadlocked 20-year-old plays Nandipha, a streetwise maid for Derek Nyathi. In the few months since arriving at Horizon Deep, she has crossed paths with the town’s crook, George Zamdela, and wreaked havoc with […]

The rise of regional forces has Nigeria thinking the unthinkable. Chris McGreal reports from Lagos The end of military rule nine months ago has unleashed a store of bitter resentments in Nigeria that have fuelled ethnic massacres, the rise of militant regional organisations and a rush to introduce sharia law in the Islamic north over […]

Brenda Atkinson MIXED MEDIA At a conference on new media in New York last week, I realised that the advent of the Internet is probably the single most forceful contribution to consumer empowerment the past century has seen. The gurus of online research brought home the message: in a digitised media environment where apertures proliferate […]

NORWEGIAN Prime Minister Kjell Bondevik was expected to arrive in South Africa on Thursday afternoon for a three-day visit. The prime minister, on his first official visit to South Africa, is scheduled to meet President Thabo Mbeki for bilateral talks on Friday, embassy and government officials said. Bondevik, accompanied by a high-powered business delegation, flies […]

Barry Streek The government is to lay down minimum wages and working conditions for domestic servants and farm workers by March next year, the Department of Labour said this week. The department’s director of minimum standards, Fatima Bhayat, told the Mail & Guardian it would wrap up its policy on the domestic servant industry by […]

everyone Nalisha Kalideen Although South Africa’s Bill of Rights is one of the best in the world, most people are still not aware of it or their rights as enshrined in it, says Paula McBride, the co-ordinator of the recently formed Rights Africa. It is because of this lack of human rights awareness within South […]