Staff Reporter

SOUTH African companies will from next week shut down their Internet and e-mail connections to avoid a rash of computer viruses expected to strike on January 1. The Sunday Times listed more than 10 prominent companies, including the top commercial banks, as among those who will cut their electronic links until a few days after […]

STEVEN MANN, Johannesburg | Saturday 5.30pm. The annual holiday season carnage on South African roads continued apace on Saturday, as the death toll since the beginning of December climbed to 354. In the worst accident recorded this month thus far eight people were killed and six injured when a minibus taxi collided with a car […]

A MAN was beaten to death for urinating against a car in Cape Town’s Sea Point tourist area on Thursday, police said. Police spokeswoman Superintendent Nina Kirsten said the 26-year-old Johannesburg man was on holiday in Cape Town when the incident occurred early in the morning. The man, who was with friends, got out of […]

THE country’s longest awaiting-trial prisoner is going to spend Christmas at home. The SA Prisoners’ Organisation for Human Rights (Sapohr) is going to pay Julia Mashele’s R50000 bail. Sapohr president Derrick Mduli says the money was provided by the organisation’s German donors. Mashele has spent more than six years behind bars after she was arrested […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kabale, Uganda | Sunday 5.30pm. TALKS aimed at uniting the three main rebel groups operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continued this weekend but the groups were under pressure from their allies and showed little enthusiasm, a rebel source said. Mozambique was presiding over the talks in the southern Ugandan town […]

ALL Black great Colin “Pinetree” Meads was named New Zealand’s greatest rugby union player of the century by a rugby magazine. Meads, who played 55 tests for the All Blacks between 1957 and 1971, finished ahead of George Nepia, Wilson Whineray, Sean Fitzpatrick and Michael Jones in a public poll run over the past 12 […]

ANDREW MUCHINERIPI, Tembisa | Saturday 7.00pm. Classic (3) 5 (Tucker 18-og, Mackett 39, Zwane 42, Matsitela 50, Mthunzi 63) Hellenic (1) 4 (Young 35, 73, Madida 48, O’Gorman 72) JUST when I was giving up on the ability of the Castle Premiership to provide anything more than degrees of mediocrity, along came Classic and Hellenic […]

ANGLOGOLD has extended the deadline for acceptances of its offer for all the shares of Australian gold company Acacia Resources Limited until December 24. In a statement Anglo said acceptances for 89,6% of Acacia shares had been received by the December 17 deadline. Anglo CEO Bobby Godsell said many Acacia shareholders many not have had […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Sunday 5.45pm. THE Zimbabwe government on Sunday attacked a British newspaper report asserting that the African country was on the brink of bankruptcy. “From all perspectives, the article is inaccurate, biased and designed to do maximum damage to Zimbabwe,” Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa said in a statement published by the state-owned […]

AFRICAN qualifying matches for the 2002 World Cup begin over the weekend of April 7-9, according to a statement from world governing body FIFA. Second-leg matches in the knockout first round are scheduled for April 21-23 and the 25 victors will be divided into five groups with the winners advancing to the finals in Japan […]

SWAZILAND officials have admitted using over-age players in the recent Southern Africa youth championships in South Africa. “We cannot deny there were ineligible players and the buck stops with us because we approved the squad,” national football association president Adam Mthethwa told the Times of Swaziland. Defender Mxolisi Mthethwa admitted to the Times of Swaziland […]

STEVEN MANN, Johannesburg | Saturday 5.30pm. TWO people died in the head-on collision between two passenger trains near Kaalfontein east of Johannesburg and not three as originally reported, police said on Saturday. Rescue workers rigged up a crane in the early hours of Saturday morning to lift the mangled train carriages off the track, and […]

ANDREW MUCHINERIPI, Pretoria | Friday 8.00pm. IT is surely a case of when rather than if Roy Matthews is removed as coach of SuperSport United after they lost 1-0 at home to mid-table African Wanderers at Caledonian Stadium on Friday night. This was defeat No 11 in 21 Castle Premiership matches and Matthews, a hero […]

A BLISTERING 99 by Romesh Kaluwitharana launched Sri Lanka to a series-clinching six-wicket win over Zimbabwe in the fourth one-day international in Harare on Saturday. Zimbabwe totalled 260 for four to which Sri Lanka replied with 262 for four in 44.4 overs to win with 32 balls to spare. Kaluwitharana scored his runs off just […]

Khadija Magardie talks to an artist who is using music to take religion to the youth When Shaheed GC embraced the Islamic faith at the age of 16, he thought he had firmly closed the door on a singing career that began in his early teens. At the time, he says, he felt that music, […]

A war’s being waged in Durban, writes Alex Sudheim of the Battle of the Bands Having witnessed the unspooling drama of Durban’s seminal Battle of the Bands from the various perspectives of contender, manager, spectator, judge and now journalist, I must say the view from each hill is remarkably different. As contender I got pissed […]

Q&A Pop star Ringo Madlingozi will perform at the Union Buildings on New Year’s Eve. He tells us about his new single, his attitude to life and love, and his hopes for the new millennium. What can you say about your new single Into Yam? The song brings that kind of vibe that has always […]

Behind the beautiful, graceful film installations that won this year’s Turner Prize, hides an unassuming, bear-likeman. And, surprise, surprise, he hates talking about his art. Sabine Durrant reports To reach Steve McQueen’s Turner Prize- winning entries at the Tate, you have to walk through the rest of the shortlist first. Past Tracy Emin’s bed, onlookers […]

dispute Fiona Macleod A magnificent environmental education and conference centre is falling through the cracks of the dispute between Mpumalanga and Northern Province authorities about who owns the Bushbuckridge Nature Reserve. Mpumalanga spent R2-million on the centre, which is inside the reserve, but stopped building when it became clear the reserve falls within Northern Province. […]

Jubie Matlou Once a fortnight, Godfrey Debeila leads a delegation of the national executive of the Unemployed Masses of South Africa (Umsa) to the Democratic Party’s offices in the Gauteng legislature. The purpose is to meet DP MP Richard Pillay, who also serves as Umsa’s policy adviser and patron, to discuss Umsa’s projects, progress and […]

On a typical Wednesday night of knocking over illegal brewing stands and closing down shebeens, Aaron Nicodemus went on a ride-along with the Hillbrow liquor control unit Alexander “Big Alex” Kavouras plucks at two carnations with his thick fingers as police cart away R25E000 worth of his liquor . The flowers’ red petals litter the […]

Johnny Masilela Twenty-four screenplays drawn from across Africa are set to find their way into the ever-growing collective of motion pictures attempting to tell the African story. Angie Mills, of the Johannesburg-based Mamaland Productions, said the 24 scripts were shortlisted from a total of just over 400 synopses, treatments, short stories, story ideas and even […]

The 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have been interpreted by artists from 28 countries, writes Alex Sudheim As a measure of the significance of the International Print Portfolio exhibition, the United Nations was eager for the show to grace the proceedings at the world body’s New York headquarters during its recent […]

Chris Gordon This has been a season of rumour in Luanda, with speculation over Unita’s next moves as thick as the flowering of the flame trees. Five weeks of near hiatus in major confrontations following the fall of Unita leader Jonas Savimbi’s headquarters has now been ended by intensified fighting along borders associated with the […]

Sudan Mohamed Osman in Khartoum Sudanese president Omar el-Bashir on Sunday declared a three-month state of emergency, and state-run television said he was dissolving Parliament. Bashir said:”There are dangers against the country from abroad, and internal problems that will aggravate the country’s problems will not be allowed. In order to preserve the unity of the […]

Steven Friedman WORM’S EYE VIEW Sometimes principle is more of a paying proposition than pragmatism. The welcome afforded Ethiopia’s former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam and the Dalai Lama’s frosty reception have focused attention again on principle (or lack of it) in our foreign policy. For some, being nice to dictators and dictatorships is a small […]

Kit Peel Linda Shaw’s Horoscope 2000, published last month, reveals a neurotic, feminine country in the hands of a man of overwhelming masculinity – a virile, dominant man handling a country with very low self- esteem. It’s Cosmopolitan magazine meets the cosmos, and it’s a lot of fun. Little Miss South Africa, let us call […]

David Le Page and Khadija Magardie Extraordinary powers to tap cellphone calls and Internet communications are on the way for South Africa’s security services following proposals by the South African Law Commission to amend bugging legislation. Among the proposals are: l Forcing cellular networks to purchase extremely expensive monitoring equipment l Establishing permanent centralised monitoring […]

Journalist and rape survivor Charlene Smith last week chose to testify in open court in the trial of the person who allegedly raped her. Rape survivors usually choose to testify in a court closed to the public. She explains her decision Two-and-a-half centuries ago, French philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, writing on American democracy observed, “The […]

David Le Page It has been announced that the Internet, which is changing the way we work, play and seek sex, will also save the world. At least, it will slow down the United States’s generous and unstinting contributions to global warming. This is the finding of a report from the Centre for Energy and […]

The marque of the cat returns to Formula One racing, as Jaguar becomes the latest manufacturer to pursue sales through the phenomenal success of the sport, writes Paul Weaver Jaguar, after a catnap worthy of Rip van Winkle, is back in motor sport. The famous marque, which in the 1950s won a considerable reputation at […]

Michelle Matthews ‘Die mees sentrale fi-guur in ons volk se geskiedenis is Paul Kruger. Egter nie slegs man van die verlede nie, hy is ook en wel, bowe alles, man van die toekoms. Soek in die verlede, so het hy ges, dit wat goed en skoon is, en bou daarop jou toekoms,” intones DF Malan […]