Staff Reporter

THE Lusaka High Court has ordered the release of nine Ukrainians and a Zambian charged with espionage after the government decided against prosecuting them, their lawyer said on Monday. Lawyer Sakbwiba Sikota said the authorities have given the defendants until Friday to leave the country. The defendants were arrested in August for allegedly overflying a […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday 10.00am. THE United States will commit $9-million to South Africa’s fight against HIV/Aids next year, a fourfold increase on its 1999 assistance, US Representative Richard Gephardt said on Monday. Democrat minority leader Gephardt is part of a nine-member bipartisan delegation of the US Congress which is to wrap up […]

ANGOLA’s rebel movement Unita mortar-bombed targets in northern Namibia at the weekend, injuring eight people, mostly civilians, police said on Monday. The Namibian government confirmed that Angolan forces had been given permission to use Namibian territory as a springboard for attacks on Unita bases in southern Angola. Police spokesman Chief Inspector Angula Amulungu said two […]

THE customs services of Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland have begun an intensive joint cross-border operation to combat various types of fraud, Mozambican customs announced on Monday. In the recent first stage of the operation, customs targeted a wide range of illegal activities including smuggling of high-duty value imports such as cigarettes and alcohol into […]

FOREIGN Affairs has washed its hands of a South African woman who may be hanged after being convicted in Botswana of murdering her husband’s former wife. Foreign Affairs spokesman Daniel Ngwepe said on Tuesday that there is little South Africa can do to save the woman’s life. “Once sentence is passed, South Africa would not […]

CORRECTIONAL Services minister Ben Skosana said on Tuesday that prison overcrowding will remain a problem well into the next millennium, and that by 2008 the numer of prisoners awaiting trial is expected to outnumber those serving sentences. Skosana said that prisoners awaiting trial will be a majority in Gauteng in 2002. According to Skosana, South […]

A HIGH level intelligence agency and police investigation has found that Hyundai Motor Distributors managing director Billy Rautenbach was allegedly involved in the murder of Daewoo SA president Yong Koo Kwon in February this year. SABC3 news reports that this is alleged in an affidavit filed in the Pretoria High Court by senior state advocate […]

JUDGMENT was reserved on Monday in the kidnapping trial of Lawrie Fraser. Magistrate JD Pretorius said judgment will be delivered on February 28 in the trial, in which Fraser is accused of kidnapping his biological son Timothy Funnell from the baby’s adoptive parents in Malawi on February 15 1997.

MPMALANGA’S controversial former finance head, Shadrack Mashele, appeared briefly in the Nelspruit Regional court on fraud charges on Monday after allegedly using State funds to settle personal business debts. Mashele appeared along with his former colleague and Mpumalanga’s current assistant finance director, Sellion Maseko. They were not asked to plead and were released on their […]

AFRICAN Cup Winners’ Cup draw for 2000 made in Tunis at the weekend: Preliminary round Cotonchad (Cha) v JS Tenere (Nig) Wallidan (Gam) v Mogas 90 (Ben) Caf winners v Rayon Sports (Rwa) Djivan (Mad) v Sey winners Mogoditshane Life Fighters (Bot) v Linare (Les) Chief Santos (Nam) v Esperanca Sagrada (Ang) First leg: Jan […]

AFRICAN Champions League draw released in Tunis at the weekend: Preliminary round Port Authority (Gam) v LPRC Oilers (Lbr) Tusker (Ken) v Red Sea (Eri) Villa (Uga) v St George (Eth) Vital’O (Bdi) v Bata Bullets (Maw) Dragons Oueme (Ben) v Renaissance (Cha) Praia Cruz (Sao) v Caf champions Primeiro Agosto (Ang) v Akonangui (Geq) […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 5.30pm. FORMER world number-one Steffi Graf beat South African Amanda Coetzer 6-3 7-5 to wrap up the Spar Challenge in Johannesburg on Sunday. Graf won the first leg in Durban last Tuesday but Coetzer came back to capture the second match in Stellenbosch on Friday. Graf took command from the […]

At least 11 people died and 160 others are feared drowned after a ferry boat sank on Lake Victoria in northwestern Tanzania, Radio Tanzania reported on Monday. The radio report said 102 other people were rescued from the boat, which hit a rock and broke apart on Lake Victoria. The boat was apparently carrying passengers […]

ANDREW MUCHINERIPI, Rustenburg | Sunday 10.30am. Sundowns ………… (1) 2 (Amougou 37, Mudau 53) Free State Stars …. (0) 0 SUNDOWNS will play a lot better than this and lose. But do they care? Not a chance. What matters is that the Rothmans Cup bogey has been laid to rest and they are R1-million richer. […]

SUDANESE President Omar al-Beshir said order and calm reigned in Khartoum on Monday after he declared a state of emergency and dissolved parliament ahead of a vote to curb his powers. Beshir declared a three-month emergency late on Sunday and announced the dissolution of parliament, which was two days away from debating curbs on presidential […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 4.00pm. THE Standard Bank said on Monday it has served papers on Infiniti Technologies to inform the company that it is seeking its liquidation. Infiniti, a black empowerment information technology services firm, said last week that one of its units had been placed into provisional liquidation, a move which prompted […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT , Johannesburg | Monday 7.15pm. TAXI ranks in Soshanguve are running smoothly and without incident after being re-opened on Sunday afternoon. The ranks were closed for two months in an attempt to put an end to taxi violence. Police spokesman Superintendent Roy Govender said taxi associations west of Pretoria and in the North […]

INTERNET service provider M-Web has announced that it is on track to break the 200000 subscriber mark before Christmas. M-Web said on Friday that the recent deal with ITI (which saw M-Web take on subscriber management services for ITI’s Club Internet subscribers) has contributed to additional growth, as has the acquisition of Cyberhost’s subscriber base […]

RESIDENTS of Thohoyandou in the former Venda homeland are preparing for a black Christmas and new millennium, with no Christmas lights, no street lights and no traffic lights. Eskom has cut off electricity to the town because of a dispute with the town council over the payment of a R1,8-million bill. The last time street […]

SOUTH African striker Phil “Chippa” Masinga, who plays for Bari, will undergo surgery on a knee injury which will virtually rule him out of the rest of the Italian season. Masinga twisted his knee during training last week but a fresh examination on Monday has shown the injury to be more serious than first thought, […]

AN armed gang opened fire on a convoy carrying the governor of Nigeria’s economic capital, Lagos, but he escaped after guards shot and killed four assailants, the city’s police chief said on Monday. Governor Bola Tinubu’s convoy was returning to his official residence in the early hours of Sunday morning from an inspection tour when […]

INKATHA Freedom Party MP Themba Khoza was implicated in the murder of African National Congress leader Sam Ntuli in the early 1990s at a Truth and Reconciliation Commission amnesty hearing on Thursday. Khoza was implicated by IFP member Thulani Tsotetsi, who is seeking amnesty for involvement in the killings of six people between 1992 and […]

PARENTS of black pupils attending Ben Viljoen High School in Groblersdal have asked the Human Rights Commission to investigate racism in the school. The parents say in a memorandum that the principal and the school’s governing body are taking no steps to deal with racism. The school attracted international attention in 1997 when it tried […]

PARENTS of black pupils attending Ben Viljoen High School in Groblersdal have asked the Human Rights Commission to investigate racism in the school. The parents say in a memorandum that the principal and the school’s governing body are taking no steps to deal with racism. The school attracted international attention in 1997 when it tried […]

ANDREW MUCHINERIPI, Johannesburg | Saturday 8.30pm. Wits University ……. (0) 1 (Alois Bunjira 47-pen) Moroka Swallows ……. (0) 0 THERE was no place for the faint hearted here as the Clever Boys collected three Castle Premiership points after a match dominated by referee Stephen Moshotle and his assistants. The man in the middle showed six […]

Computerised tabulation of votes in the just-ended Mozambican presidential and parliamentary elections failed to start as planned on Wednesday due to technical problems, an electoral official said on Thursday. Tabulation of provincial results will only begin later on Thursday. Physical counting of votes at the polling stations started immediately after polling ended on Sunday. The […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Port Elizabeth | Sunday 5.20pm. SOUTH Africa are 263 runs ahead at stumps of the fourth day of the second Test against England at St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth after posting 189/4. Jacques Kallis was the hero of the South African innings, showing great determination to reach 74 runs off 230 balls. […]

SOUTH Africa were thrashed 26-0 by New Zealand in the semifinal of the IRB World Sevens Series tournament in Stellenbosch on Saturday, but the Kiwis lost in the final to Fiji. The South Africans started well, but could not keep up the pace against the Kiwis and when skipper Eric Rush scoired on the stroke […]

TWO people were injured and more than 100 shacks destroyed when a fire swept through a shantytown in the turbine hall of the derelict Johannesburg power station on Thursday. The fire was apparently caused when a shackdweller left a candle burning. Police spokesman Inspector Phetole Mahasha said some of the residents attacked an elderly man […]

ANDREW MUCHINERIPI, Bloemfontein | Sunday 6.30pm. Bloemfontein Celtic … (0) 2 (Kukame 83, Gulwa 87) Classic …………… (1) 2 (Mackett 26, Mabotja 47) CASTLE Premiership fairytale club Classic lost a two-goal lead on Sunday at the Free State Stadium as they spurned an opportunity to rise above Orlando Pirates into third place on the 18-team […]

ZIMBABWE sold 28 tonnes of elephant hide on Friday to both domestic and foreign buyers at auction for 23.2 million Zimbabwe dollars. The auction was conducted at the headquarters of the country’s National Parks and Wildlife department in Harare. The hide is used to manufacture high quality leather products. Last year 80 tonnes of hide […]

SOUTH Africa were defeated 2-0 by Zambia in the Cosafa Cup under-20 final at Vosloorus Stadium in Johannesburg on Friday. The Zambians have now successfully defended the title a fourth time, but the South Africans could have done better, had they taken their chances. The first half saw well-balanced play from both sides, and the […]