SCIENTISTS have successfully tested a natural insecticide against grasshoppers and locusts in Niger. The non-chemical insecticide, called Green Muscle, has no secondary effect on humans or animals, and kills only locusts and grasshoppers – longtime pests for farmers in Africa and elsewhere. It can be applied just once a season, and costs only one third […]

AUSTRALIA’S Aquarius Platinum is to proceed with an offer to acquire South Africa’s Kroondal Platinum following a revision of the exchange ratio originally offered. ”Accordingly, a re-assessment of the exchange ratio has resulted in a revised offer of 1.2 Aquarius ordinary shares for every one KPM ordinary share,” the companies said in a joint statement. […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Monday DISGRACED former anti-apartheid activist Dr Alan Boesak, jailed earlier this year for squirrelling away R1.3m of donor funds, could be out on parole by next June following a Correction Services Department decision to slash ten months off his sentence. Boesak started his 3-year sentence on May 15 this year […]

ALAN RAYBOULD, Abidjan | Monday SUPPORTERS of Socialist Laurent Gbagbo are increasingly confident that he has won Ivory Coast’s presidential election, seeing off army ruler General Robert Guei to end 10 months of military rule. Gbagbo, of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), and Guei were the only serious runners in a field of five after […]

ERITREAN and Ethiopian foreign ministers are due to meet in Algiers this week for progress talks on the peace pact that ended a two-year border war in June. Eritrean Foreign Minister Ali Said Abdella said representatives of Algeria, the United States, the European Union and some OAU governments were expected to attend. The talks are […]

CAMEROONIAN gendarmes have raided Nigerian villages, killing an unspecified number of people in a border area disputed by the two countries, Nigerian newspapers reported. The alleged invasion took place about a week ago in the Boki area of southeastern Cross River State. Border clashes there have not been as frequent as in the Bakassi Peninsula, […]

FIERCE fighting is raging between the Congolese army, supported by their allies, and Rwandan troops backed by rebel forces in Katanga province in southeastern Congo, military sources in Kigali said at the weekend. Rebel sources said between 6 000 and 8 000 Congolese government troops and their allies were involved in the offensive, backed by […]

SOUTH African retail distribution group Specialty Stores Ltd has won shareholder approval to implement a restructuring programme that will see the unbundling of Specialty shares and the name change to Mr Price. The restructuring would also involve the liquidation of Storeco Ltd, which has a controlling interest in Specialty and the conversion of Specialty ‘N’ […]

SOUTH African police are seeking the masterminds behind a heist of 30 tonnes of unrefined platinum worth millions of rands after nine men were caught packing the granular platinum into maize meal bags on Johannesburg’s East Rand. The truck transporting the metal was hijacked during the week. Police found the truck using a satellite tracking […]

A NIGERIAN couple who smuggled two young Nigerian girls into the United States and held them in involuntary servitude in their home in the Bronx, New York has been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison. Prosper Emeka Udogwu and his wife, Ifeoma Ezeonu Udogwu, had been sentenced to 11 years and three months […]