Staff Reporter

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 11.00am. THE University of South Africa (Unisa) has reinstated Namibian academic Joe Diescho who was gagged and demoted after being accused of publicly criticising the university. A commission of enquiry originally found that the decision by former principal and vice-chancellor, Marinus Wiechers, to axe Diescho was “legally and morally incorrect”. […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 5.15pm. WEST Indies manager Clive Lloyd claimed injuries, illness and attitude problems have brought about the West Indies’ dismal showing in South Africa so far. After seven matches on tour, the West Indies have yet to register a win, even in one-day games against invitation teams, and trail 2-0 against […]

MICHAEL METELITS, Johannesburg | Monday 5.00pm. The rand broke through the R6 to the dollar barrier again on Monday, driving stock indices and the bond market down sharply. The rand closed at R6,015 to the dollar, in light trading dominated by a few large dollar orders. The R6 barrier is now a key level for […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 9.00pm. South Africa gained a crushing 178-run over the West Indies when the tourists collapsed to 141 all out in their second innings on the third day of the second Test at St George’s Park on Saturday. South Africa lead 2-0 in the five-match series. West Indies were set to […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 6.00pm. SOUTH Africa is set to join the international community in a drive to combat drug trafficking when it on Monday signs a United Nations convention specifically formulated to deal with the growing problem of international drug trafficking. South Africa will become the 149th country to join the 1988 United […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 7.00pm. THE National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union on Sunday warned employers in tertiary education institutions to put a moratorium on retrenchments or face a national strike early next year. More than 3000 have been retrenched in the sector so far. Nehawu president Vusi Nhlapo warned that the union […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Lausanne | Sunday 8.00pm. INTERNATIONAL Olympic Committee member Sam Ramsamy on Sunday denounced claims that African votes were up for sale for any city wanting to host the Olympics. Speaking from Bangkok where he is attending the Asian games, Ramsamy countered that: “The targets of these claims always seem to be Africans.” “When […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 10.00pm. KAIZER Chiefs struggled against Moroka Swallows in their Premier Soccer League match played at the Johannesburg Stadium on Sunday, eventually running out 1-0 winners after Marc Batchelor scored the winning goal in the 39th minute. Batchelor connected well with a square pass from Robert Nauseb and fird home. Both […]

BERTRAND ROSENTHAL, Mutsamudu | Sunday 6.00pm. AN uneasy truce prevailed on Sunday in Mutsamudu, the chief town of secessionist Anjouan in the Comoros, after a week’s fighting between rival militias that has claimed at least 60 lives. Gunfire had broken out on Saturday night, killing at least one person, whose body was found in the […]

ROBERT SMITH, Melbourne |Sunday 9.00pm. The International team romped to victory Sunday in the Presidents Cup to lift the trophy for the first time, inflicting the heaviest defeat ever suffered by the star-studded US team. In steady rain after two heatwave days, the Internationals drawn from all over the world except Europe powered home to […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 10.00pm. KENYA take a one-goal lead to Tanzania this weekend for an intriguing East African derby in the preliminary round of the 2000 Olympic Games qualifiers. The first match in Nakuru was settled by an early goal from Simon Mulama. The winners face Cameroon, Ghana, Guinea or South Africa in […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 11.00am. THE Internationals lead the United States by seven matches to three after the first day of the Presidents Cup golf team event at Royal Melbourne on Friday. The Internationals won the morning foursomes 3-1/2 matches to 1-1/2 and then claimed the afternoon four-ball matches by 3-1/2 to 1-1/2. It […]

Food: Monica Hilton-Barber If you’ve decided to let Richard Branson do the jetsetting and simply put your feet up and chill out this summer, then check out the hot spots in the Mpumalanga Lowveld. The coolest place to be this season is the Artist’s Caf in Hendriksdal, on the N37 from Nelspruit to Lydenberg. Nestled […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 3.30pm. Friday 3.45 South Africa have gone to tea on 11/2. Friday 3.35 Gary Kirsten has been dismissed for two, caught behind by Ridley Jacobs off the bowling of Courtney Walsh. Friday 3.20 South Africa lost their first wicket with their score on five when opener Herschelle Gibbs was caught […]

Chris Gordon and Howard Barrell Jonas Savimbi’s stronghold has fallen, according to reports coming out of Angola. Government troops are thought to have entered Unita’s Bailundo headquarters on Wednesday and Unita are said to be retreating eastwards to their bases in the Cazomba region, Moxico province, next to the Zambian border, leaving the town relatively […]

MICHAEL METELITS, Johannesburg | Thursday 5.00pm. THE rand continued stronger on Thursday, bringing bonds and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange along with it although gains were muted all around. Trading was spare before the holidays and dealers repeatedly suggested the markets were “looking for direction”, indicating potentially volatile swings. The rand closed at R5,95 to the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Thursday 11.30am. TWO Zimbabwe banks may be heading for failure after the collapse of the country’s United Merchant Bank (UMB), say local analysts. The turmoil in Zimbabwe’s banking circles follows the Zimbabwe Reserve Bank’s provision of Z$400-million to prop up the Zimbabwe Building Society. The building society is believed to have […]

ROB DAVIES, Johannesburg | Thursday 4.00pm. SOUTH Africa are looking down the barrel of a gun at St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth as the West Indies bowling attack fired on all cylinders to leave the South Africans reeling at 182/8 just at tea on the opening day. The South Africans will be looking to […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 8.30pm. JOE NDHLELA, former Transnet executive director, was on Tuesday appointed the new chief executive officer of the Premier Soccer League. The announcement was made by National Soccer League chairman Leepile Taunyane at the PSL’s offices in Johannesburg. Forty-three year old Ndhlela will take over from current CEO Trevor Phillips […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 9.00pm. NOTORIOUS heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson will fight for the first time in nearly 19 months on January 16 when he makes his return to heavyweight boxing against South Africa’s Francois Botha. The return, however, might be short-lived as Tyson may be headed back to prison after he allegedly assaulted […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 9.00pm. AMERICAN golfing sensation Tiger Woods said on Thursday he wants to spread the word about golf to South Africa’s disadvantaged black children. Woods, on his first visit to the country, made his first comments about race since arriving last Monday for the Million Dollar challenge and a 10-minute meeting […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Tripoli | Sunday 9.00pm. A SETTLEMENT of the Lockerbie affair is “close,” Libya’s foreign ministry said on Sunday, one day after United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan met with Libyan officials in a bid to put an end to the matter “once and for all.” “A settlement of what is known as the […]

President Nelson Mandela, in an interview published on Sunday, categorically ruled out a blanket amnesty for human right crimes committed during the apartheid era.

OWN CORRESPONDENT , Sun City | Friday 6.30pm. SATURDAY UPDATE: LEE WESTWOOD of Britain took the lead on Saturday. He shot a record-equaling 65 on Friday, then an inspired 66 on Saturday, putting him two shots ahead of Justin Leonard, with Tiger Woods and Nick Price four shots behind him. Ernie Els is two shots […]

Jane Rosenthal VERLIESFONTEIN by Karel Schoeman (Human & Rousseau) The grave of a young war hero killed in an Anglo-Boer War skirmish is what the narrator of this novel, an historian, is looking for. He and his photographer are heading for a cemetery in a Northern Cape dorp. Although the narrator dismisses as limited the […]

Friday night: Nashen Moodley Being a Durbanite recently arrived in Johannesburg somehow necessitates being constantly regaled with tales of malicious muggings and wanton violence. The locals seem to take to this (supposedly educative) task with much glee and I was told, quite matter-of- factly, that I would be attacked before the weekend was out. The […]

Andy Colquhoun Rugby Let us pause before the dogs of war are loosed at Twickenham on Saturday to consider the game’s most important personality. A person who won’t even be on the field. If South Africa were to miss out on their bid for a rare Grand Slam – and for all the bullish talk […]

no African renaissance’ Despite its limited resources, South Africa stands to gain by developing its own HIV vaccine, instead of waiting for the West to provide, writes Lesley Cowling More than 25 clinical trials of different types of vaccines against HIV – the virus that causes Aids – are under way all over the world. […]

answered Jann Turner Friday: After a month, I have a whole day off. I’m ready for a day paying off bills. I’m feeling strong, so I start with the post office. Eventually I get to the service-with-a-scowl teller and I pay my phone bill. I’m two-and-a-half weeks late, but hell, that’s not long – is […]

Maureen Barnes Down the tube There is no crisis. That’s what Dr Khulu Mbatho from the Department of Home Affairs said to Chris Gibbons about our electoral . if you’ll pardon the expression . arrangements. Well it depends, of course, on your definition of crisis. Compared to the San Franscisco earthquake, the bubonic plague and […]

Andy Capostagno Cricket South Africa’s selectors may be justified in believing that the first and most difficult hurdle has been surmounted. The four-wicket win against the West Indies at the Wanderers will have settled a lot of butterflies in a lot of stomachs. If there was going to be a fast pitch in this series […]

Not CD of the week: Sheryl Garratt Happiness is largely a matter of perception. But if the world is split into optimists who see a glass as half- full and pessimists who see it as half- empty, then Canadian singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette goes further: she sees the glass as a dangerous weapon that will inevitably […]