AN international conference on landmines opens in the Mozambican capital on Monday. The five-day meeting is expected to bring together 800 delegates from the signatories of the 1997 Ottawa Treaty banning the production and marketing of mines. At least 134 countries signed the Ottawa Convention, but only 72, most those that have suffered the effects […]
THE Canterbury Crusaders came back from a 31-6 deficit after 30 minutes on Sunday to beat South Africa’s Golden Cats 58-38 in a 12-try Super 12 slugfest. Both teams treated the packed Trafalgar Park, Nelson, crowd to entertaining rugby. The Cats scored four of their five tries within 30 minutes with center Conrad Stoltz, who […]
EVANS MODISE, a member of the police VIP protection unit and a bodyguard to Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder, in the Mamelodi Magistrate’s Court. Modise is alleged to have beaten to death a neighbour, Hluphekile Baloyi, on New Year’s Eve, by beating his head against the road. […]
THE police services and army in KwaZulu-Natal said on Friday they are confident a climate conducive to free and fair elections will be maintained in the run-up to and during the June 2 poll. A joint statement said police, the army and the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) hold meetings on a regular basis to discuss […]
IN BRIEF McMILLAN, DONALD FOR DEATH MATCH SOUTH Africa’s Brian McMillan and Allan Donald have been chosen for an MCC team which will play the Rest of the World in a memorial match for Diana, Princess of Wales, at Lord’s on July 18. MCC Team: Mike Atherton (England), Amir Sohail (Pakistan), Mohammed Azharuddin (India), Saurav […]
NAMIBIA is to host the Oceanic Tug of War Championships in July in Swakopmund, it was announced on Monday. This was one of the decisions taken by a historic Tug of War International Federation (TWIF) congress that was held on African soil for the first time the coastal town of Swakopmund the weekend. Between 500-700 […]
THE British Lions will visit Australia in 2001 after the tour is approved by the International Rugby Board’s (IRB) Executive Council. The IRB had originally wanted the Lions to play two tests in both New Zealand and Australia but decided instead to stage three tests in Australia only, with a separate tour of New Zealand […]
ANGOLA struck twice within five minutes during the closing stages to grab a 2-1 victory over Malawi in a Castle Cup Southern Africa championship match in Blantyre on Sunday. Antonio Mendonca, a 16-year-old debutant, equalised after 76 minutes with a close-range shot and Malawi captain Patrick Mabedi turned a Paulo Tomas cross into his own […]
AFRICAN club championship first-leg fixtures this weekend, April 30 to May 2. The second leg will be May 14-16. Champions League First round: Kaloum, Guinea v Shooting Stars, Nigeria; Second round: Al-Ahly, Egypt v Rayon Sport, Rwanda; Raja Casablanca, Morocco v Djoliba, Mali; ASEC, Cote d’Ivoire, holders v Al-Harrach, Algeria; Hearts of Oak, Ghana v […]
THE details for the 1999 Castle Cup Southern Africa championship: First round: Lesotho 1 Namibia 0; Botswana 1 South Africa 2; Malawi 1 Angola 2; Swaziland v Mozambique, playing May 9; Zambia, holders, Zimbabwe byes. Losers play-offs (lowest FIFA ranked teams at home): May 22-23, May 29-30. Quarter-finals (highest FIFA ranked teams seeded. Draw for […]
OPENING batsman Andrew Hudson has announced his retirement from international cricket after 35 tests for South Africa. Hudson, 34, was the first South African to score a century on a test debut when he made 163 against the West Indies in Barbados in 1992, South Africa’s first test after 22 years in isolation. Hudson scored […]
Phillip van NiekerkL:FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK One of the great myths of our industry is that the press is “powerful”. This dates back, no doubt, to the days when The Times was “The Thunderer” – its correspondents, like Morrison of Peking, enjoying the status of ambassadors in foreign countries. Since then that power has been […]
Xolela Mangcu:CROSSFIRE The political transformation of the past 10 years will no doubt go down in history as one of the most important events of the millennium – on par with the French, American, Indian, Chinese, and Russian revolutions. Some of our leading scholars have taken to talking about the “maturing” and “consolidation” of our […]
SEVEN major opposition political parties in Mpumalanga banded together on Thursday to create a multi-party forum to co-ordinate election campaigns and monitoring. The initiative, spearheaded by the Institute for Political Leadership, should allow opposition parties to pool resources and staff to monitor voting polls and election rallies, and to attempt to ensure that the ruling […]
Matthew Krouse Down the tube If God is directing television broadcast programming, then He’s trying to tell us something about the past. Why else would the hipsters and swingsters of the Sixties and Seventies keep cropping up? Bell bottoms, stiff cupped bikinis, sideburns, big medallions and some very outdated morality has crept into the fuzz […]
Jamie Doward The story so far. Deutsche Telekom wants to get into bed with Telecom Italia. Deutsche’s ardour for a Latin lover has hurt the sensibilities of France Tlcom which, via its membership of the Global One consortium, had been enjoying a threesome with the German telco and American company Sprint. However, British Telecom (BT), […]
THURSDAY, 2.00PM: STATE-owned diamond mine Alexkor is at loggerheads with local Northern Cape pigeon clubs to find the most palatable solution to rid the town of the birds, thought to be used in a uncut diamond smuggling racket that has reportedly cost the mine production losses of up to 20%. Alexkor’s chief executive Thian Combrink […]
THE Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the main trade unions federation, has ordered a general strike next week over payment of a new minimum wage, a press report said Thursday. NLC president Adams Oshiomhole asked private sector workers to join their colleagues in the public sector on May 6 for a general strike, the independent Nigerian […]
Ann Eveleth Northern Province pensioners suing the state were rounded up in a police van and forced – by senior welfare officials – to sign documents they could not read, their lawyers claimed this week. Pretoria Legal Resources Centre lawyer (LRC)Nick de Villiers said about 37 clients involved in legal action to force the state […]
Melvyn Bragg:A SECOND LOOK I owe Christianity a debt, and so, I believe, does the world we have lived in for the past 2 000 years. Much of what is best in that duo-millennial span has been due to the man who inspired the faith which took his name. But Christianity also owes me and […]
than many people think Telford Vice Cricket The fate of the Titanic may be the major single reason 1912 sticks in the minds of many who would otherwise have no cause to hang on to the events of 87 years ago. But another, almost as damp saga played out in the same year was the […]
THURSDAY, 12.15PM: UNITED Crickate Board MD Dr Ali Bacher on Wednesday announced sweeping changes to South African cricket, including co-opting black members to the UCBSA board, splitting the Supersport Series into two divisions, and a new-look Standard Bank League and Cup format. Bacher said three black cricket representatives will be co-opted to the UCBSA board, […]
David le Page Economists are not as a rule reluctant to be quoted, but the subject of personal investment in unit trusts induces unusual reticence. This is largely due to their being advisers to the managers of those funds. The fund managers would be irked to have their doubts confirmed by their paid gurus. After […]
Director Ken Kaplan has made a zombie movie that mixes red blood and black humour. Andrew Worsdale, acting like a zombie, gets the inside story Ten years ago writer/director Ken Kaplan, at age 24, was in the formative stages of pre-production and major development on a movie called Fanus – Pure Blood. It was the […]
A new incarnation of Matabeleland’s Zapu party has emerged to fight the `Shonalisation’ of Zimbabwe, writes Mercedes Sayagues Bulawayo is simmering. Part is fermented anger and part is soulful excitement. The anger is rooted in the government’s neglect of Matabeleland. That western Zimbabwe is poorer is obvious, from the threadbare airport to the barefoot, ragged […]
The Godolphin stable has made its mark everywhere except America. Saturday could change all that, writes Jamie Reid Louisville, Kentucky, spends most of the year looking and feeling like a prosperous but dull provincial town. But on Monday, the old riverboat landing on the banks of the Ohio became the sporting, hustling and gambling capital […]
Bram Stevens South African equities put on a stunning performance in the first quarter of 1999, spurred by falling interest rates and bullish global markets, fund managers said this week. The key all share index gained 18,1% to end the quarter at 6 382,5, buoyed by sharp gains in the interest rate-sensitive retail and furniture […]
If HIV/Aids infection continues at its current rate, the gap in the productive workforce could be devastating. Aaron Nicodemus reports For a country like South Africa, the worst part about Aids is who it kills. Unlike the bubonic plague that devastated Europe centuries ago, Aids does not prey upon the weak, the old and the […]
Ann Eveleth Land reform has quietly undergone a major policy shift as the government has entered the land market in a bid to reshape the way land reform works. Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Derek Hanekom told the Mail & Guardian in an interview this week that the government had already begun purchasing farms […]
Howard Barrell:OVER A BARREL By the time you make your squiggles on a ballot paper on June 2, you will have read all the parties’ manifestos, analysed the outcomes they propose and the plausibility of the methods they suggest, sifted their merits out further in intelligent debate, cogitated and reflected still further, and then, with […]
Catherine Knox at the Eastern Cape Dance Umdudo The Eastern Cape has always been an incubator bed, a crucible. A place of fecundity and foment. Last week’s FNB Dance Umdudo – five days and nights of dance in Grahamstown – was a celebration of work in progress. An unadjudicated bricolage of bodies in movement – […]
Chris Gordon This decade has seen a major drop in De Beers’s Central Selling Organisation (CSO) share of the diamond market, and there are questions as to whether the cartel can survive in its current form. The diamond giant now controls an ever-decreasing share of the world’s diamond output. The Southern African diamond industry, traditionally […]