Johannesburg  - German automaker Volkswagen AG plans to cut 400 jobs at its South African plant, news reports said Friday.

Company spokesmen Bill Stevens said the cuts were necessary because of an expected 10-per-cent drop in new car sales this year, the SAFM radio station said.

Furthermore, Volkswagen plans to cut down production around the Easter holidays to cushion drops in export demand.

Volkswagen builds its right-hand-steered Golf cars in South Africa for export.

Sydney, Jan 29 : South African coach Mickey Arthur believes that being the No. 1 ranked cricket nation is not an easy task, and his one-day side is not quite ready to deal with the pressure and expectations that comes along with it.

The Proteas can overtake Australia onto top spot on the one-day rankings with a win in Friday's fifth and final one-dayer at the WACA Ground.

Arthur said his team, who lead the ODI series 3-1 is still in development mode, and would be better served by snaring the mantle later down the track.

Zurich - South Africans are confident like never before about the nation staging the 2010 football World Cup, but concerns in the areas of crime and pricing remain.

The ruling football body FIFA said in a statement issued on Wednesday that a poll conducted by the Sport+Markt company revealed that three out of four residents say that South Africa will be ready on time for the event.

More important, 77 per cent of those polled said they were more confident about the tournament success than they were in 2004 when the nation was elected host by FIFA.

Adelaide, Jan. 26 : The Australian cricket team''s hype around Australia Day came to nought on Monday with South Africa registering an eight wicket victory against them in the fourth one-day international played here.

South Africa spearheaded themselves to a series victory (three games to one), by scoring the required 223 runs, thanks to telling knocks of 82 not out and 80 not out by batsmen A. B. de Villiers and Hashim Amla. Earlier, Australia had scored 222. Skipper Ricky Ponting top scored for the hosts with 63. South African fast bowler Dale Steyn snared three wickets for 49 runs.

Harare/Johannesburg - Southern African heads of state converged on South Africa' capital Pretoria Monday, in yet another attempt to eke a compromise from elderly Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and the country's opposition on a power-sharing agreement.

Monday's extraordinary summit of the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC), which is being chaired by South African president and current SADC chairman Kgalema Motlanthe, is the bloc's third crisis summit on Zimbabwe in under a year.

Johannesburg - A security officer at Johannesburg's OR Tambo International airport was in police custody Thursday after being arrested in connection with the discovery of large quantities of drugs on a South African Airways (SAA) flight to London.

Police said a female security officer was arrested Wednesday night, a day after investigators at Heathrow airport found 50 kilograms of cannabis and four kilograms of cocaine in three pieces of luggage after the arrival of the morning SAA flight.