Staff Reporter

A LIBERIAN military tribunal has formally charged nine military officers with sedition for their alleged involvement in a plot to overthrow the government last year, a military communique said on Saturday. It accused the soldiers, detained without charge since last September, of fighting on the side of former warlord Roosevelt Johnson during clashes last September […]

ZIMBABWE’S Standard newspaper editor, Mark Chavunduka, and his chief writer, Ray Choto, will appear at the magistrates court on Monday to face charges of contravening section 50 of the Law and Order Maintenance Act. The two journalists were illegally detained and tortured by state agents before being released and brought to the court on 21 […]

SPANISH King Juan Carlos closed a two-day business seminar in Namibia on Saturday which sought to diversify Spanish investments in Namibia away from the fishing industry. At present, 99% of trade between the two countries is based on fisheries. The Spanish monarch, on a three-day visit, pointed to Namibia’s “increasingly positive economic indicators and strategic […]

UNITED States First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton will conduct a private visit to Morocco next week. Clinton will make stops in Fez and Marrakesh during her holiday. This comes after President Bill Clinton has advised his wife to “take time and rest” before a possible bid for a seat in the US Senate next year.

THE South African under-17’s football team will face their Zimbabwean counterparts in a second round African Junior Championship qualifier at Orlando Stadium in Soweto on Sunday. A good win will be a big boost for the players’ championship hopes in this important outing. A good crowd is expected at Orlando for the 3pm match that […]

NEW Zealand’s cricketers may be a little distracted when they play South Africa on Saturday because an extra game has been slotted into their match schedule for Sunday. A full strength Kiwi side is to play Wadsworth Invitation XI — mainly 10 to 12-year-olds New Zealanders — who won the right to play the country’s […]

ENGLAND captain Lawrence Dallaglio said on Thursday that he would not be happy having South African World Cup flyhalf Joel Stransky playing for England. Stransky has been in superb form for his English club Leicester and there has been speculation that he could qualify to play for England in this year’s World Cup. Coach Clive […]

THE Confederation of African Football (CAF) president, Issah Hayatou, has agreed to meet a Zimbabwean football delegation in Ghana next month to discuss Zimbabwe’s bid to win back the African Nations Cup 2000 tournament. The Herald newspaper reported on Friday that the meeting will be held on March 6 in Accra, just four days before […]

ZIMBABWE’S Mark McNulty threw away a first-round lead at the Stenham Royal Swazi Sun Open in Mbabane on Thursday with a rare triple bogey on the course’s third easiest hole. McNulty finished on 68, three strokes behind leaders Chris Davison, Brenden Pappas and Justin Hobday. Wimpie Botha, Andre Cruse, Ashley Roestoff, Ian Kennedy AND American […]

tion Howard Barrell:OVER A BARREL Try as I might – and try I have – I can find no upset or sensation in the electoral lists agreed by the leadership of the African National Congress last weekend (February 14). The party’s left wing appears happy and so, too, does the right. In that lies a […]

Peter Dickson Eastern Cape pensioners almost went without their welfare grants this month when a dispute arose on pay-out day following allegations that teenagers were receiving pension payments. The villages of Dyantyi and Makapela in the Centane district have been feuding for generations, and allegations of corruption in monthly pension payments sparked the latest row. […]

John Matshikiza:WITH THE LID OFF I’m driving in the rain when I get a call from my private army (well, armed response to you) to tell me there has been an alarm activation at my house. “Should they go round and check it out?” asks the voice on the other end of the line. “You […]

Emeka Nwandiko Pape Diaby has a dream – that someday Africa will have a tennis academy that will produce some of the best players in the world. In Meadowlands, Soweto, under the blazing midday sun, the general manager of the Confederation of African Tennis is coaching 75 pre-schoolers from the suburb. As a labourer wearing […]

Belinda Beresford The rich man in his castle and the poor man at the gate should each in their own degree be feeling at least content with the personal implications of the latest government budget. Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel has continued the government’s intention of redistributing income by relieving the direct tax burden on […]

FORMER Rwandan health minister Casimir Bizimungu has been arrested in Kenya on suspicion of war crimes and will be moved to the International Criminal Tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, a tribunal spokesperson said on Friday. “He has not been accused but he is a suspect,” spokesperson Kingsley Moghalu said. The court was set up by the […]

He kicked a man to death, he’s made a sucker of Mike Tyson – and he hasn’t much time for journalists. Kevin Mitchell chats to Don King Let’s get personal. I don’t particularly like Don King. But, parked in front of the 68- year-old dandy from Cleveland in a London hotel recently, I found myself […]

David Shapshak Product: Opera 3.10 web browser Requirements: Minimum 386 SX Processor, 4Mb RAM Supplied by: Opera Software `It fits on a stiffy,” an enthusiastic colleague gleefully told me, presenting me with his latest software discovery. In these days of “bloatware” – as the huge, feature- laden, slow-moving bundled software packages by major developers have […]

Ferial Haffajee The Pan Africanist Congress will give the death penalty the chop but will sever the lesser limbs of criminals. If it assumes power after the elections, the party will also ban abortion, rescind anti-smoking legislation, scrap national debt and the provinces. The PAC pipped other parties to the post when it released its […]

Andy Capostagno Rugby There is a theory which states that northern hemisphere rugby will only improve if it changes its playing season to coincide with that of the southern hemisphere. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. (This paragraph with apologies to Douglas Adams). For how else can we explain the […]

Loose cannon:Robert Kirby As part of its relentless quest for a just society, the government will soon be considering a piece of new legislation, a Bill which prescribes the extent to which schools, private clubs, banks, hospitals and citizens will in future be allowed to discriminate in choosing their associates and clients. To be entitled […]

Andrew Muchineripi Soccer National soccer coach Trott Moloto faces another no-win situation on Saturday in Gaborone where Botswana host Bafana Bafana in a Castle Cup Southern Africa championship first-round match. Given the lowly stature of the home team, who lie 133 places behind their opponents on the world rankings, Moloto will be expected to return […]

The Bloodline Series Volume 1 is one of five CDs that Cape Town-based New World Music has released, featuring top Khayelitsha musical talent. The Bloodline Series features three reggae acts, Bloodlines, Urban Mystics and The Future, making this a 14-track roots reggae compilation originally recorded live in the townships and subsequently remastered at New World […]

Belinda Beresford Anyone wanting to follow American President Bill Clinton’s lead with Monica Lewinsky in developing novel uses for cigars had better stock up on their favourites before any enjoyment wanes in the face of a 3 669% increase in excise duty. Cigar aficionados will pay an extra R7,33 per 23g in excise charges, up […]

When I first walk into the Association for Visual Arts, primed to review Medina Morphet’s exhibition of abstract art, it’s disconcerting to first encounter the illustrative drawings of Bongi Bengu. There also seem to be two distinct crowds here tonight, a relatively bourgeois, middle class crowd who are attracted to Bengu’s narrative depiction, and a […]

Andrew Worsdale Movie of the week `That was one of the worst, most homophobic pieces of inane, boring rubbish I have ever seen,” or words to that effect spouted one of my colleagues, a leading movie critic. I don’t agree about Terence Malick’s The Thin Red Line. Overseas critics have also been divided about the […]

Gert Thys steps out from the shadow of Josiah Thugwane, but he’s finding that fame doesn’t necessarily pay, reports Michael Finch For some, the second-greatest moment of the Olympic marathon was when Josiah Thugwane raised his right index finger as he crossed the finishing line. For the historians it was a moment to record and […]

Alex Dodd The latest salvo in that grand old struggle to make South Africans wake up to the fact that local really can be the lekkerest is an initiative called Beyond the Pale, aimed at the support and promotion of designer-makers. For the uninitiated, “designer-makers” are people who not only design but also love getting […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, London | Friday 10.30am. OIL giant Shell will next week launch the world’s first large scale commercial solar electrification project which will eventually bring power to 50000 homes in the Eastern Cape. President Nelson Mandela will attend the inauguration of the scheme in the Bipa area on February 24, pulling the switch on […]

Trevor Manuel boasted of increased government spending, but analysts say the budget won’t boost development in real terms. Ann Eveleth reports Low-income wage earners will benefit from significant tax cuts this year, but the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) is poised for a setback following real cuts in most social spending categories as the 1999/2000 […]

Fiona Macleod It’s not surprising a culture of helping oneself to unearned gains has taken root in Mpumalanga – nor that the parks board is the instrument of this culture. Take a bird’s-eye view of the Sand River as it winds its way from the Northern Province through Mpumalanga, and you’ll see why: on one […]

Ken Daniels Horse racing Picking a Fort Wood horse to win a feature race is about as easy as predicting that the price of alcohol and cigarettes will go up in the budget. After picking off three of the four choice plums in the Cape racing feature season, the Mike de Kock/Weichong Mawing combination returns […]

Matthew Krouse Down the tube `Greetings to Germany from the youth of South Africa!” They could have been words on a corny postcard – a happy message to friends, from friends far away. But they weren’t. Rather, they were the prelude to an in-your-face cultural confrontation that, with the aid of advanced technology, will be […]