Staff Reporter

THE Nigerian government has agreed to plans to dredge the river Niger, from the coast to the federal capital, Abuja, opening it up to major river boat traffic. The project will cost 8,3-billion naira (about $10-million), said Major-General Mohammed Buhari, chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund and a former military ruler of Nigeria. Contracts are […]

THREE people were killed and one injured when a light aircraft crashed on a farm outside Heilbron in the Free State on Saturday evening. The dead were identified as Gert van der Merwe (48) his wife Katy (59) and their son Corrie (24) who was piloting the aircraft. A friend, Gerhardus Labuschagne (22) sustained a […]

THE Democratic Party on Sunday announced that the leader and chairperson of the Freedom Front caucus in the Greater Pretoria Metropolitan Council have defected defected to join its ranks. Caucus leader Philip de Wet and chairperson Wickus Theron, who announced the move at a DP fundraiser on Saturday night, automatically lose their seats.

MINING production fell 1,0% in 1998 compared to the previous year, Statistics South Africa said on Thursday. However, mining production for the fourth quarter of 1998 reflected an increase of 5,7% after seasonal adjustment compared with the third quarter of 1998. This increase was mainly due to the contribution of platinum mines. The value of […]

FORMER military ruler Olusegun Obasanjo early Monday won the presidential nomination of Nigeria’s largest political party, setting him on course for the February 27 presidential elections, party officials said. Obasanjo won 1658 out of more than 2400 votes from delegates at the convention of the centre-left Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), roundly defeating former civilian vice […]

AUSTRALIA’S Samantha Riley scored a confidence-boosting victory over Olympic champion Penny Heyns in the 100-m breaststroke at the World Cup short course meet on Saturday. The world-record holder from Brisbane led from the gun and touched in 1:07.63 to edge out South African Heyns by 0.25 seconds.

THE New Zealand Rugby Football Union has rejected a proposal for an expanded Super 12 competition which would have included a team from the United States. A preliminary discussion paper about expansion of the successful New Zealand-Australian-South African based contest to include the US did not receive a favourable response from the union, a New […]

THE results of the Dusi Canoe Marathon will be amended after canoeist Wayne Volek, who finished third in the race, was found guilty on Thursday evening of doping in the event. Canoeing South Africa’s executive committee suspended him from competition for two years, as stipulated by the International Canoe Federation rules on doping. Volek was […]

A RWANDAN court on Thursday condemned two people to death and sentenced five others to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity committed during the country’s 1994 genocide, according to legal sources.The court, specialising in crimes committed between April and July 1994, in genocide which left between 500000 and 800000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates dead, handed […]

BROTHERS Alex (37) and Elijah Ngirazi (23) on Friday admitted in a Zimbabwean court to murdering William Player, a great grandson of the man who founded the John Player tobacco dynasty. His body was found on Thursday, three weeks after he disappeared from his home outside the capital.”We have not positively identified him, but there […]

A MAN who covered his face with a farmer’s wife’s panties while robbing the family at gunpoint was sentenced to 10 years in jail in the Nelspruit regional court on Friday. Nkosinathi Sibiya (19) and an accomplice, who was shot dead during his arrest, broke into a farmhouse in Malelane last April while the family […]

A British oil worker and his two-and-a-half-year old son were kidnapped Sunday in Nigeria, a few days after a another British oil worker was taken hostage. Martin Westbury, and his son, were seized by three armed youths in Warri in south-east Nigeria, an official working for Westbury’s employer, the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell. The official […]

THE South African national netball team leaves this week for a two-week tour of Jamaica and Britain. The Amablomme-blomme will play four international games in their first tour since the Commonwealth Games last year.

THE world’s biggest organisation of journalists on Friday called on Zimbabwe to end its current crackdown on the media and demanded that those responsible for the torture of two reporters are brought to justice. The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists said seven journalists had been detained since the start of this year in a crackdown […]

SOUTH Africa’s top 64 under-19 rugby players will vie this week for places in the 26-man squad to play in the IRB/Fira Junior World Championship in Wales between March 26 and April 4. The final squad will be announced on February 22. After warm-up games in March, the team will face first-round opponents Uruguay on […]

Angola Howard Barrell South Africa has launched a diplomatic offensive to spur the United Nations and big powers into decisive action to halt Angola’s accelerating slide into all-out civil war. In Parliament this week, President Nelson Mandela called for a new international approach to bring peace to the Angola. At the same time, South African […]

John Matshikiza:WITH THE LID OFF It’s late at night. I’m sitting at a bar in suburban Cape Town, minding my own business, when a bunch of formerly white men come bundling in, some with their wives. They are all badly dressed: grey shoes, flannel trousers, cheap leather jackets, white shirts and tacky ties. They are […]

NEGOTIATIONS are under way to secure the release of a British oil worker kidnapped on Thursday in the troubled Niger Delta region, a British embassy spokesperson said on Friday.The oil man was seized on Thursday by youths demanding money. His identity, and that of the company he works for, are being withheld at the request […]

Farmers on South Africa’s northern border are dispossessing their South African workers and trucking in Zimbabweans, who are willing to work for R5 a day. Ann Eveleth reports Maswiri Boerdery director Andries Fourie is the quintessential old-style farmer. Khaki- clad and drunk with the power he exerts over the 400 South African farmworkers he dismissed […]

Kevin Mitchell Boxing In the movies, the fighters only bleed pretty. Slap in front of the camera means mascara, not knuckle. But not all boxers are squash-nosed pugs and, this Sunday, there are three at work on either side of the Atlantic who manage the rare feet of making both their opponents and young women […]

TWO Sierra Leonean government ministers thought to have been killed in the rebel invasion of Freetown may actually have been kidnapped by the rebels, authorities said on Friday.”Rumours persist that they are still alive and in the hands of the rebels,” a statement from the president’s office said of Public Affairs Minister, Mohamed Sesay, and […]

LAGOS police have arrested 13 people and banned northern cattle herders from using a 50-year-old market after a clash with oil tanker drivers this week left several people dead. The ban came after oil tanker drivers threatened strike action. The drivers regularly hold Lagos to ransom by strikes, using the chronic fuel shortage — in […]

Mungo Soggot A senior banker and two accomplices will be tried in the Germiston regional court next month for fraudulently claiming R45-million in tax rebates for non-existent goods they purported to sell to central African countries. According to court documents, the syndicate set up a chain of three companies to generate false invoices for hi-tech […]

There’s a school of thought that argues that the provinces should have limited taxation powers, writes Charlene Smith Amid reports of budgetary chaos at provincial level, the Financial and Fiscal Commission is increasing pressure on the government to allow the provinces limited taxation powers. The commission, which advises the minister of finance on provincial budgetary […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi The African National Congress leadership meets this weekend to finalise the political future of candidates heading its election nomination list. With the party upbeat about the possibility of netting more than 60% of the vote in the general election, the crucial three-day meeting has drawn much interest because it has to decide who […]

You don’t have to be paranoid to buy a Pentium, but it helps, writes John Naughton If you thought Microsoft was an aggressively competitive company, then you’ve never heard of Intel, the outfit which makes the processor chips inside most of the world’s computers. Andy Grove, until recently Intel’s head honcho, was famous for his […]

Fiona Macleod While limited legal trade in ivory was given the go-ahead this week, a report released by South Africa’s Endangered Species Protection Unit (ESPU) shows that the protection of endangered species in sub-Saharan Africa is in a dismal state. The report is based on an intensive six-month surveillance of 11 countries undertaken by ESPU […]

THE South African Insurance Association (SAIA) is to conduct a comprehensive national investigation into the effectiveness of fire services following concerns expressed by the short-term insurance industry that fire services are becoming less efficient, contributing to the severity of fire losses. SAIA chief executive Barry Scott said: “SAIA has contacted the minister of constitutional affairs […]

Alex Bellos, in Santos, reports on the joyous return of a modest footballing legend to his roots The world of football may have changed unrecognisably since the 1950s, but Pele still looks the same. His short Afro has hardly receded, keeping the unmistakable shape of when he was a young player. He is fit and […]

A series of confidential Foreign Office telegrams just released by the British Public Record Office sheds dramatic new light on the political storm that blew up in 1967 over England’s proposed touring party to South Africa. Alan Travis reports It was an urgent secret telegram from the Foreign Office in London to the British ambassador […]

Wonder Hlongwa and Tangeni Amupadhi Nelisiwe Dladla’s eyes are in constant motion, darting from corner to corner as she scans the faces of three strangers in the “the family room” of her house in Entembisweni. Dladla is scared and wary of strangers because her husband and brother-in-law were killed in separate incidents within a day. […]

Peter Conrad Iris Murdoch, the novelist and philosopher, who has died aged 79, was one of the best and most influential writers of the 20th century. Above all, she kept the traditional novel alive, and in so doing changed what it is capable of. She was not the heir – as she early and wrongly […]