Staff Reporter

GOLD mining giant Gold Fields reported higher quarterly profits on the back of a stronger gold price and confirmed it is eyeing neighbouring gold miner Western Areas. Gold Fields also forecast a strong second half to the financial year, including a higher dividend payout for shareholders. Western Areas management said on Wednesday the company’s future […]

EGYPT’S attempt to retain the African Nations Cup received a terrible blow when star striker Hazem Emam was ruled out of the tournament with an ankle injury. Emam hurt himself in a crunching tackle with Abdel Aziz Ayman during training at the Kano Pillars’ stadium and was rushed to hospital on Saturday evening. Egypt coach […]

SARAH BULLEN, Cape Town | Monday 3.00pm STANDARD Bank Investment Corporation (Stanbic) on Monday lost its high court bid to have its proposed acquisition by smaller rival Nedcor adjudicated by the Competition Commission. Pretoria High Court Acting Judge Nico Coetzee ruled that the minister of finance has the final say about the proposed the hostile […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Accra | Sunday 6.30pm. FORMER champions Cameroon survived a nervous finish to defeat Algeria 2-1 in Accra on Sunday in the first quarter-final of the African Nations Cup. Early goals from Samuel Eto’o and Marc-Vivien Foe put the 1984 and 1988 winners in command only to relinquish the initiative in the second half […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 9.00am. THE Assets Forfeiture Unit threatened over the weekend to clamp down on “gentlemen’s clubs” across the country, if they don’t clean up their act. The warning follows a raid on a high-class Gauteng brothel, The Ranch, which has been provisionally attached. It is now being managed by a curator, […]

THE luxury Blue Trains are to be sold as they need international expertise and a high level of marketing required to keep them running. Spoornet CE Zandile Jakavula said that the two trains have been identified by Spoornet as assets that need international management to maintain their high profile. The 18-wagon Blue Trains travel between […]

TITLE favourites Nigeria meet surprise packets Senegal on Monday in what appears the most one-sided quarter-final of the African Nations Cup. While the Super Eagles line-up could be mistaken for the African All Stars, the Lions do not possess one footballer who would be immediately recognisable outside the West African country. “We are the best […]

SOUTH Africa’s under-23 soccer team were beaten 2-1 by Angola in their pre-Olympic qualifying friendly at the Orlando Stadium in Soweto on Saturday. The South Africans looked firmly in control and seemed to be heading for an easy victory, but the tide turned sharply. The visitors, who have been in South Africa for four weeks […]

THE US, led by new captain John McEnroe, fought back from 2-1 down to beat Zimbabwe 3-2 on Sunday and reach the quarter-finals of the Davis Cup. Cup debutant Chris Woodruff applied the killer touch after world number one Andre Agassi had beaten Byron Black in straight sets, knocking off Wayne Black 6-3 6-7 6-2 […]

THE Addo Elephant Park in the Eastern Cape is to be expanded on Monday at a fence-cutting ceremony attended by the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Mohammed Valli Moosa. The idea of expanding the park into a huge super-reserve stretching to the coastline has generally been welcomed in the Eastern Cape – although some […]

LANCE Klusener on Wednesday became the second fastest player to achieve the double of 1000 runs and 100 wickets in one-day internationals when he trapped Zimbabwe’s Murray Goodwin lbw. Klusener, playing his 70th one-day international, took one for 45 to claim his 100th wicket. His unbeaten 65 earlier in the match took his run tally […]

DIVERS searching coastal waters off Cote d’Ivoire have retrieved one of the black box recorders from a Kenya Airways plane that crashed and killed 169 people. Members of Abidjan’s diving club pulled one of the black boxes from the water on Friday morning and also said they had seen bodies among the fuselage and debris. […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Sunday 1.35am. SOUTH Africa have posted 204/7 in thei alotted 50 overs in a triangular-series match against Zimbabwe at Port Elizabeth, with Jacques Kallis again saving the innings with a splendid knock of 98. The South African innings was again comprised of mediocre knocks and soft dismissals, especially those of […]

TURKISH police have arrested a young Nigerian footballer because of his failure to notify authorities on entering the country that he is a carrier of the AIDS virus. Francis Okwudili Aneke, 19, who was arrested in an Istanbul hotel, also loses his place in the line-up of Turkish first division side Istanbulspor, the club said. […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kumasi | Sunday 11.00pm. BAFANA Bafana held on with 10 men for most of the second half to defeat co-hosts Ghana 1-0 in a tense African Nations Cup quarter-final in Kumasi on Sunday. Siyabonga Nomvete scored the only goal after 42 minutes and Bafana Bafana had Eric Tinkler sent off just 120 seconds […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Saturday 4.00pm. AFRICAN Football Confederation president Issa Hayatou warned on Saturday that Africa’s chance of hosting the 2006 World Cup may be ruined if South Africa and Morocco persist in putting up rival bids. In an interview in the Dubai daily Emirati al-Ittihad, Hayatou said: “If the two countries don’t […]

FORMER Chadian president Hissene Habre was charged on Thursday in Dakar with “complicity in acts of torture” following complaints filed against him last week by several human rights organisations, Habre’s lawyer said. This is the first time an African country has pursued a former head of state from another country on the continent. Habre, who […]

SARAH BULLEN, Cape Town | Friday 5.00pm VOLATILE local markets took a knock on Friday despite welcoming a strong opening of Parliament speech by President Thabo Mbeki. Just an hour before market closed, however, the bullion price unexpectedly surged to $295 catching dealers off guard. The JSE was just in time to catch the run […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Sunday 12.30pm. ZIMBABWE’S tennis players are turning John McEnroe’s first Davis Cup as captain of the United States team is turning into a nightmare. The Zimbabwean doubles team of Wayne Black and Kevin Ullyett on Saturday beat the makeshift U.S. tandem of Rich Leach and Alex O’Brien, 7-6 (7-4), 5-7, 0-6, […]

FOUR bills aimed at legally burying South Africa’s apartheid history and cementing its young democracy have been signed into law by President Thabo Mbeki. The Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Bill, the Promotion of Access to Information Bill, the Promotion of Administrative Justice Bill and the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Bill completed […]

THE South African cricket squad to tour India will be announced on Monday morning. ZA*SPORTS is putting it’s neck on a block by naming the most likely 15-man cricket squad for South Africa’s two Test, five one day international tour to India. The ZA*SPORTS squad is: Boeta Dippenaar, Herschelle Gibbs, Louis Koen, Jacques Kallis, Dale […]

NIGERIA have dropped their leading scorer in the African Nations Cup, Victor Ikpeba, for their decisive Group D match against Morocco on Thursday. Ikpeba, who plays for Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund scored twice against Tunisia in Nigeria’s opening game. But Dutch coach Jo Bonfrere pulled out the striker during the match against Congo which ended […]

SHARKS coach Hugh Reece-Edwards says eighthman AJ Venter will remain with the squad unless ordered otherwise by a court. Venter missed his team’s 51-0 victory over Border in a pre-season friendly in East London on Saturday. The mercurial eighthman is embroiled in a contractual dispute with the Golden Lions, and Venter has been barred from […]

BOXING Legend Roberto Duran’s daughter has signed on with Golden Gloves and will be making her professional boxing debut in South Africa in March. She is the third daughter of a legend to turn pro, and follows in the footsteps of Mohammad Ali and George Frazier’s girls. Duran will be entering the ring as a […]

SEVERAL organisations including the ANC Women’s League and Women Against Child Abuse will demonstrate against domestic violence outside the Johannesburg magistrates court at 8.30am. on Monday. The demonstration is being planned to coincide with the start of judgement in the domestic violence trial of television personality Tracey Going and film-maker Richard Latham. The trial has […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Sunday 9.00pm KWAZULU-Natal has reintroduced DDT to fight the malaria epidemic in the northern parts of the province, despite a worldwide ban on the toxic insecticide. The spokesman for the provincial department of health, Dave McGlew, said at the weekend the use of DDT will be strictly controlled. “This is […]

FIRES in the Noordhoek region near Cape Town have been rekindled by strong winds and three Air Force helicopters have been called in to control the fires. Western Cape joint forces spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Piet Paxton said helicopters took to the air shortly after 5pm to investigate the fire, which was raging in the mountains […]

BRITISH boxer “Prince” Naseem Hamed will defend his WBO flyweight title against South Africa’s Vuyani “The Beast” Bungu in London on March 11. Hamed was scheduled to fight Junior Jones but the bout fell through when the New Yorker failed to agree terms by the deadline date.

MOROCCAN minister for youth and sport, Ahmad Mussawi, held talks with Saudi officials in Riyadh on Sunday in connection with his country’s bid for the 2006 World Cup. Mussawi, touring the Gulf Arab states to seek backing for the bid, met Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz and the head of the kingdom’s sports and […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Sunday 3.30pm. WORLD number one Andre Agassi pulled the United States back into the World Group Davis Cup first round clash in Harare on Sunday when he beat Zimbabwean Byron Black 6-2, 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) to level the tie at 2-2. All now depends on the outcome of Sunday’s second reverse […]

SARAH BULLEN, Cape Town | Friday 6.00pm BUSINESS has given President Thabo Mbeki’s State of the Nation address the thumbs up in what it has digested as a market friendly statement — but one that lacked in depth and detail what it made up in for with good cheer. “As expected and in true political […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Sunday 8.45pm SOUTH Africa’s labour laws are stangling small business, and have to be amended, President Thabo Mbeki said in an interview published on Sunday. Mbeki expanded on his parliamentary address, and told the Sunday Times that labour laws, planned to overhaul exploitative labour legislation, were a problem, as they […]