"Eish, it is looking very good for South Africa," the 33-year-old Zulu witch doctor said after casting her eyes over a seemingly random scattering of animal bones and sea shells during a seance in downtown Johannesburg. "Look, the trouble is far, far away. No bombs," she added, pointing to a polished and highly decorated knuckle-bone lying apart from the mass of trinkets strewn across the concrete floor in the corner of a dingy bus station. A weekend newspaper report, vehemently denied by the South African government, of an "80 percent chance" of a terrorist attack during the June 11-July 11 soccer spectacular suggests her confidence is not universally shared. But in Africa, where mysticism and magic play a part in many people's lives, pronouncements from a 'sangoma' such as Nsukwini can carry as much weight as those from governments, especially when it comes to the murky world of security agencies. In sport, too, sangomas have been a regular but unofficial fixture on the African team sheet, using their ability to commune with the dead to determine a player's fortunes and whether a dose of sympathetic magic and traditional 'muti' potion is in order.