SOUTHERN Africa faces a reduced cereal deficit of 293 000 tonnes in the current marketing season with an overall surplus seen for maize, a regional food security unit said. In its latest quarterly bulletin, the Southern African Development Community Regional Early Warning Unit said cereal availability for the current 2000/2001 marketing year was estimated at 28.51m tonnes against consumption and strategic reserve requirements of 28.81m. A regional maize surplus of 1.71m tonnes was expected, mostly due to an increase in output to 10.58m tonnes in South Africa. By the end of October 2000, member states had made plans to import some 2.19m tonnes of cereal, including intra-regional imports of maize from South Africa and Malawi. – Reutersins in technology, media and telecoms issues as well as continuing strength in platinum shares.