Staff Reporter

WEDNESDAY, 12.15PM: NATIONAL soccer coach Clive Barker will meet the South African Football Association executive on Wednesday to convince them he is worth the R100 000-a-month to take Bafana Bafana to the World Cup Finals in France next June. Safa is silent on the issue but the feeling is that Barker will be asked to […]

WEDNESDAY, 12.00NOON TELKOM and its strategic partner Telekom Malaysia are planning to expand operations into African countries where telecom privatisations are under way and major opportunities are opening up. Telkom international business unit head Alan Hooper said the two parties are investigating opportunities in a number of African countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, […]

PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela came under fire at the start of the Congress of SA Trade Unions congress yesterday.

WEDNESDAY, 1.00PM ON another front in its war to preserve its telecommunications monopoly over the next five years, Telkom says that it stands to lose billions of rand if the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Satra) rules against it and allows Internet service providers to offer more than value-added services. The telecom is also fighting […]

WEDNESDAY, 3.00AM FORMER Civil Co-operation Bureau operative and convicted murderer Ferdi Barnard, 39, will go on trial in the Pretoria High Court on February 2 next year on 24 charges including murder, attempted murder, fraud, theft and illegal possession of firearms and ammunition. The Pretoria High Court set Barnard’s trial date on Wednesday. He has […]

WEDNESDAY, 11.00AM The gold index fell 23,6 points, or 2,45% on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) on Tuesday, to a two-month low of 937,9, tumbling as bullion fixed $1,30 lower at $321. The fall pulled down the JSE all share index 33,7 points, to a three-month low of 7145,8, allied with continued futures-based selling in […]

WEDNESDAY, 12.15PM: ORLANDO Pirates Zimbabwean coach Ronald Mkhandawire left on Tuesday with a 15-man squad for the first leg of their third match against Raja Casablanca of Morocco this Sunday. Their mission to win against Casablanca changed for the better on Tuesday night when midfielder Dumisa Ngobe was cleared to play. It was earleir reported […]

WEDNESDAY, 11.30AM RETAIL group Wooltru has bought the ailing retail chain of CNA in a deal valued at about R500-million. The acquisition will be funded by the issue of Wooltru shares. Wooltru executive chairman Colin Hall says that the buyout will not enhance Wooltru earnings over the next couple of years, and that investments will […]

TUESDAY, 1.00PM TELKOM’s legal woes with the South African Callback Association (Sacba) operators have become even more entangled, with allegations that the telecoms parastatal has approached corporates in South Africa to use a callback service run by Telkom itself. A corporate source claims that Telkom is considering setting up a callback facility through a third […]

TUESDAY, 1.00PM LIFE assurance group Old Mutual lifted total assets under management by 19% to R235,9-billion in the year to June, according to group MD Gerhard van Niekerk. The increase translates into a 23,9% increase in the excess of assets over liabilities to R29,3-billion, which will be paid to policy holders when Old Mutual demutualises […]

TUESDAY, 4.00PM GOVERNMENT officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday refused demands by UN investigators that they be allowed to search for mass graves in the west of the country. The latest refusal comes in the face of a 48-hour ultimatum by the UN team attempting to investigate claims that troops of President […]

TUESDAY, 1.00PM SAPPI Limited has become the world’s largest producer of coated wood-free paper by acquiring a 91,5% stake in KNP Leykam, Europe’s leading producer of coated wood-free paper and lightweight coated paper.In a R3,5-billion deal with Dutch group NV Koninklijke KNP BT, Sappi will hold a 26% market share in the US coated wood-free […]

TUESDAY, 1.00PM SOME of South Africa’s 50 central farm co-operatives are likely to convert into companies as storage and other contracts provided by agricultural control boards are phased out by January. In a scheme similar to the the conversion of KWV into a company by December, the registrar of co-operatives, Louis du Toit, says that […]

TUESDAY, 3.30PM POLICE early on Tuesday arrested National Consultative Forum leader Sifiso Nkabinde and 17 of his supporters in connection with violence in the Richmond area in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands over the past few months. Nkabinde was arrested when a 500-strong contingent of police and soldiers raided his home in Mogoda near Richmond at dawn. […]

TUESDAY, 12.30PM: OLYMPIC double gold medallist Peny Heyns, who is back in South Africa for a month, said the pressure of being an Olympic medallist has made her lose focus and she will have to make changes to her training methods. “You get involved in a lot of other things like sponsorships and so on,” […]

TUESDAY, 12.30PM: NATAL kept their lead at the top of the Bankfin Currie Cup log after this weekend’s rugby matches. A depleted Natal team were made to work hard on Saturday for their 29-19 win over the Mpumulanga Pumas at King’s Park Stadium while their closest rivals, Western Province, ran rampant over North West 52-18 […]

TUESDAY, 2.00PM INVESTORS took a more cautious stance on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on Monday, keeping an eye on international trends and biding their time until the futures close-out later this week. “It was a sleepy market … There is no direction at all … and although the futures guys were active, there was nothing […]

TUESDAY, 9.00AM POLICE commissioner George Fivaz said on Monday that the Witwatersrand attorney-general has indicated he will institute criminal proceedings against Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and her “football team” for the murder of Lolo Sono if the young man’s body can be found. Sono was a member of the Mandela United Football Team, a gang of township […]

MONDAY, 4.30PM THE United Nations team sent to investigate the alleged mass slaughter of Rwandan Hutu refugees in the former Zaire has given the new regime two days to allow it to begin work, the mission said on Monday. The team has told President Laurent Kabila’s government in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that […]

MONDAY, 2.00PM SOUTH Africa’s callback operators are going back to court to prevent the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Satra) from carrying out a renewed threat to shut down callback operations. The regulator had previously said that it will not initiate prosecutions against callback operators until the completion of a pending high court hearing on […]

MONDAY, 1.00PM: SOUTH AFRICAN cricketers will continue with their build-up practice matches ahead of the tour to Pakistan when they play a four-day match at Kingsmead starting on Tuesday. The squad will split into teams of equal strength and potential balance of batting and bowling skills. The team in which skipper Hansie Cronje will play […]

MONDAY, 5.30PM BUSINESS South Africa and Union federation Cosatu on Monday denied consensus had been reached on the Basic Conditions of Employment Bill. Cosatu welcomed Labour Minister Tito Mboweni’s decision to place a revised Bill before Parliament, but cautioned that it wants further changes to the Bill and consensus has not been reached. “While we […]

MONDAY, 2.00PM ZAMBIA has banned all imports of flour, including flour in transit, in a bid to gain a preferential trade agreement with South Africa. About 10_000 tons of flour a year are supplied to Zambia by SA flour millers Premier Milling, Tiger Oats and Bokomo/Sasko, making it SA’s third-largest flour export market. The Zambians […]

MONDAY, 2.00PM SOUTH African sugar dealers are defrauding the fiscus of at least R36-million annually, by round-tripping sugar through neighbouring states, according to industry sources. The sources say that SA sugar is being routed through Lesotho and Namibia, resulting in VAT rebates from the SA government, GST refunds from neighbouring states and discounts from wholesalers […]

Iden Wetherell Zimbabwes public watchdog, the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, risks losing its bite as the countrys bishops, anxious to appease President Robert Mugabe, attempt to muzzle it. The commission built a formidable reputation snapping at the heels of Ian Smiths rebel Rhodesian regime in the 1970s. It exposed atrocities committed by security […]

Bill Elliott : Golf When Richard Hills, the European tour official in charge of this months Ryder Cup, flew back into London from Switzerland last Friday, he was astonished to discover that the flowers outside Buckingham Palace were visible from his window seat. He could have been excused if he had thought also that flowers […]

Swapna Prabhakaran When a nine-year-old mentally handicapped girl told people she had been raped by her teacher, no one listened until it was too late for the crime to be medically proven. The girl, who attends the Felicitan special school in Brakpan, claims she was raped by a male teacher. It was during the July […]

Sechaba kaNkosi The battle for the top positions in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) began in earnest this week when nominations were made public. A list released by Cosatu shows that despite some dissatisfaction with some members of the executive, they are all likely to be re-elected by the 2 400 delegates […]

FRIDAY, 4.00PM AUDITOR-general Henri Kluever has called for a full-scale commission of enquiry to establish whether relatives or close friends of Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele improperly benefited from the Motheo housing project in Mpumalanga. An inquiry is one of the recommendations contained in a report on the auditor-general’s special investigation into the project which is […]

doctors Mungo Soggot The Department of Health is locked in dispute with South Africas top academic medics over controversial plans to ban public health service doctors from doing private work The department has tabled its plan with the Public Service Bargaining Chamber and held its latest round of talks with medical profession representatives this week. […]

Melvyn Minnaar : Potable pleasures It is the enfant sauvage, if not the fils terrible, of the wine-making business. Of true French nobility with deep historical roots, the Sauvignon Blanc grape has seldom been tamed by the wannabes of the New World vineyards. It either runs wild on them or terrorises them into submission. South […]

Julian Drew : Athletics The South African cross country championships take place in Amanzimtoti on Saturday looking every bit like the national championships of a sport in crisis. For a country that possesses so much latent talent in middle- and long- distance running, South Africas performance at this years world cross country championships in Turin […]