Staff Reporter

FRANCE claimed their place in the World Cup semi-finals on Sunday when they quelled a valiant Argentina side to win a try-filled quarter-final 47-26 at Lansdowne Road on Sunday. France raced into a 17-0 lead before Argentina battled back to trail just 30-26, only for the greater freshness of Jean-Claude Skrela’s side to show in […]

TWENTY buses and seven minibuses with faulty braking systems were taken off the roads in the Eastern Cape during a weekend traffic blitz, traffic officials said on Monday. Eastern Cape provincial traffic control spokesman, Charles Bramwell, said officials confiscated the vehicles and only returned them once the bus drivers had fixed the braking systems and […]

PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki received a copy of the Independent Electoral Commission’s atlas of 1999 election results on Friday. The 228-page atlas is made up of a number of maps detailing the results of the June elections. It will set you back R10000 a piece. At a lunch to mark the launch of the document, Mbeki […]

SOUTH Africa’s opening batsman Gary Kirsten is almost certain to miss the two home and away Test matches against Zimbabwe, as his Western Province side had a bad day at the office in Paarl on Friday. At the close of the second day of their Supersport Series match against Boland, Province were 139 runs behind […]

CHARGES have been withdrawn against two of those accused of murdering former United Democratic Movement secretary-general Sifiso Nkabinde at Richmond in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands early this year. Sibusiso Bruce Mhlongo and Zeblon Zibuse Ngcobo appeared briefly in the Pietermaritzburg Regional Court on Friday before they were released. Mhlongo has turned state witness, while the magistrate […]

EGYPTIAN club Al-Ahly climbed to the top of Group 1 in the African Champions League with a 4-1 home win over Shooting Stars of Nigeria this weekend. The 1982 and 1987 champions lead Raja Casablanca of Morocco, another team that has won the major continental club competition twice, on goal difference with Hearts of Oak […]

THE Ministry of Defence said on Friday it hopes to get at least R1-billion from the sale of military aircraft it’s no longer using. Included in the sale will be about 40 jet fighters and nine transport planes. The ministry said it’s making plans to withdraw and sell off the aircraft, which will be replaced […]

RESCUER workers are battling on Sunday afternoon to free a trapped miner after a second rockfall at AngloGold’s Bambanani Mine near Welkom in the Free State covered their earlier efforts to reach the man. The first rockfall, which took place at about 8.25am on Saturday morning, trapped three miners at 1400m. Rescue teams managed to […]

A SEVERE storm hit the Balfour area in Mpumalanga province on Thursday night, wrecking a farmer’s house and causing an estimated R1,5-million damage, police said on Friday. Raging winds tore off branches and uprooted several bluegum trees in a plantation in the area before wrecking the house of farmer Willem du Plessis, Sergeant Leonard Hlathi […]

A CAPE TOWN based research programme is trying to reverse the outflow of skills from the country by putting skilled people abroad in touch with companies in South Africa. South African Network of Skills Abroad (Sansa) has sent out letters to some 28000 South Africans known to be resident abroad. To date more than 1800 […]

MEYRICK Pringle struck a entertaining 83 off 48 balls, but it wasn’t enough to deny Gauteng victory inside three days in their Supersport Series match against Eastern Province at the Wanderers on Saturday. The former South African bowler recovered from a powerful blow on the helmet to almost force Gauteng to bat again in a […]

THE Pentagon has created a center for African strategic studies, which will hold its first seminar in Dakar from October 31 to November 12. Forty-three countries from all parts of the continent, as well as nations like Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal will be represented at the meeting, interim director Nancy Walker said. […]

LAWRENCE BARTLETT, Harare | Friday 7.30pm EMPLOYERS and workers alike on Friday slammed the Zimbabwean government’s budget for 2000, saying it fails to address the country’s worst economic crisis since independence nearly 20 years ago. The powerful Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) stated that workers “will not accept additional burdens” — a reference to […]

trusts Shaun Harris Only R0,5-billion flowed into foreign unit trust funds over the past quarter – a figure that does not represent the huge appetite local investors have built up for offshore investment. Over the previous quarter, R2,2- billion was invested in international funds. The reason for the slowdown is many of the funds listed […]

Uncertainty in the markets is pulling private investors hither and tither, writes Shaun Harris Pity the private investors. They are being pushed and pulled from different directions and are clearly finding it difficult to take a view on where to invest their money. That seems the only plausible explanation for the trends emerging in the […]

Shaun Harris Until recently, property unit trusts (PUTs) hadn’t really caught the eye of the smaller, private investor. There are a number of reasons for this. Investors tend to focus on capital appreciation, and with PUTs the income yield is as important. Also, PUTs are a relatively small sector, easily overlooked. Perceptions began to change […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Washington | Friday 9.15am. SOUTH African Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu underwent exploratory cancer surgery on Thursday at the Emory University Hospital in Atlanta in the southern US state of Georgia. The surgery “was to see where the cancer spread, and determine what kind of future treatments are necessary,” said hospital spokeswoman Michelle Stevenson. […]

Ivor Powell Two legal firms with connections to the former claims executive of the Road Accident Fund (RAF)were given large volumes of legal work contracted out by the fund. Former RAF claims executive Johan van Oudtshoorn – who was appointed internal audit executive for the fund after August 1998 – was involved in contracting out […]

Mail & Guardian reporter The ability to compare prices quickly and easily is one of the attractions of shopping on the Net. In the real world, you have to trudge between shops, trying to remember which had this or that item at the best price. But online, one store is a click away from another. […]

Charlene Smith CROSSFIRE After writing about a woman gang-raped in front of her children who now has HIV (October 15 to 21), a number of male callers to the Mail & Guardian suggested that my writings about rape suggested I have a boring life and “just need a good fuck”. Amazing how often it comes […]

THE chair of the South African Football Association Women’s Football Committee Nastasia Tsichlas has resigned. Safa said on Thursday it has received and “regretfully” accepted the resignation, effective immediately. No reason for the resignation has been given. “Safa is very pleased to reaffirm its confidence in the women’s football committee and shall soon announce the […]

Mercedes Sayagues One of Africa’s most pristine coastal areas may soon be lost if the Mozambican government carries out its plan to build a deep-sea port just south of the Maputo Elephant Reserve. The project is a $515-million partnership recently approved between the state railways Caminhos de Ferro de Mocambique (CFM) and the firm Porto […]

Andrew Muchineripi Soccer I am seriously wondering whether some soccer officials have not lost the plot. Crowds are dwindling fast at Premier Soccer League (PSL) fixtures, yet they want to introduce another competition. Amid all the talk of fixture congestion, the PSL board of governors wants the Top Eight competition revived, with media speculation hinting […]

Pretoria Matthew Krouse spoke to curator Erna Beumers about her mission to return African art to Africa To say that each item on the Africa Meets Africa exhibition carries its history with it is an understatement. The mystery is reinforced by the tags on each that don’t date the exhibits by when they were last […]

AN exchange of state visits between South Africa and China are being planned, Chinese Vice Foreign Affairs Minister Ji Pei Ding said in Pretoria on Thursday. No date has however been set for the visits. The two deputy ministers said there will be closer bilateral cooperation between their countries in the future, despite the fact […]

Charl Blignaut It’s easy to sensationalise the cultural myths that surround Lake Fundudzi near Thohoyando in the Northern Province. Fundudzi is referred to as the “zombie lake”, a place where buried ancestors are said to come alive at night and play drums beneath the water. It is the myths and superstitions of Fundudzi that have […]

Phillipa Garson CLASS STRUGGLE It is refreshing to be confronted with a whirlwind of action in the form of Minister of Education Kader Asmal. His civil servants, who have grown used to grabbing on to their hats every time he blasts past, affectionately refer to him as “Papa Action” nowadays – no allusion to his […]

Naseem Hamed seems to have calmed down, but that doesn’t mean he’s lost his bite, writes Kevin Mitchell In his suite at Caesar’s Brookdale, a shiny resort in the Poconos Mountains of Pennsylvania for newlyweds and others who prefer their entertainment in-house, Naseem Hamed is one lonely little geezer. In fact, he is so lonely […]

South Africans are often upbraided for being a nation of poor savers. Personally, it’s an accusation that irritates me. We are given little incentive to save, particularly through our tax structure that soon starts eating away at any savings the average person sets aside. However, we do have a highly developed, sophisticated financial services industry, […]

THE National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) on Thursday gave notice of a planned strike by nearly 1000 mineworkers at Billiton Plc’s Alusaf Hillside aluminium unit. “The action will begin on Wednesday [October 27]. The union has given notice to the company on its intentions to strike,” Numsa said in a statement. Numsa […]

Risk on investments can be measured, claim the experts, enabling us to identify which risks have tended to deliver the rewards. Dave Bradfield explains how this is done Last year’s crash on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) highlighted once more that the additional returns investors seek on the JSE (over and above the promise of […]

Robert Kitson in London Rugby World Cup Like one of those artworks that Rolf Harris used to specialise in, the Rugby World Cup remains a strangely dislocated blend of coloured dots, splashes and drips as it pauses for breath. Not much shape to anything, unless you count that ominous black streak running through the middle, […]