Cape Town (South Africa), Mar. 23: When former Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee famously said a decade ago that Mitchell Johnson had enormous potential as a Test cricketer, he could have meant as a batsman.

Captain Ricky Ponting certainly thinks the pace bowler can go a long way with the bat and wasn''t at all surprised to see the left-hander hit his maiden century of 123 not out in Australia''s defeat in the third Test in Cape Town on Sunday.

Johannesburg - A 16-

Cape To

London, Mar 23: Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has been barred from entering South Africa to take part in a peace conference linked to the 2010 football World Cup, plunging the country into a diplomatic row.

The decision was met with outrage by fellow Nobel peace laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the former President F. W. de Klerk, who are organising the conference on March 27 with the Norwegian Nobel Peace Committee.

Johannesburg  - South Africa's popular archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu has threatened to boycott a peace conference planned for next week in Johannesburg after the South African government reportedly denied the Dalai Lama a visa, a newspaper said Sunday.

South Africa's Sunday Independent quoted an angry Tutu as saying: "If His Holiness's visa is refused, then I won't take part in the upcoming 2010 World Cup-related peace conference."

The Nobel Peace Prize winner accused South Africa, which has close ties with China, of "shamelessly succumbing to Chinese pressure" and said he was "ashamed."

Luanda  - In what was billed as the high point of his three- day visit to the southern African country, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated an open-air mass Sunday in Angola's capital Luanda in front of hundreds of thousands of worshippers.

Benedict was joined by southern African bishops in saying the mass on the Cimangola Esplanade at the entry to the city.

The celebration was overshadowed by the deaths on Saturday of two youths in a stampede Saturday at a sports stadium in Luanda, where the pope addressed thousands of youth.