NIGERIAN authorities have ordered troops onto the streets of Lagos to restore order after three days of ethnic violence left more than 100 dead. Thousands of terrified residents sought protection in police and army barracks as Yoruba youths hunted down Hausa rivals in the worst ethnic violence to shake the city in almost a year. […]

REUTERS AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Abuja | Wednesday NIGERIAN President Olusegun Obasanjo has pledged his government’s support to improve business confidence in the oil-producing country at the urging of industry leaders. “We have to improve confidence. I agree absolutely with that,” Obasanjo told the concluding session of this year’s Nigerian Economic Summit. Nigeria’s industry leaders and […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednessday A SOUTH African group of grappa distillers is spearheading an alliance to strike back at the European Union’s (EU) move to secure Italy’s position as the world’s only producer of “real” grappa. The SA Grappa and Distillation Association, which represents three distillers, wants all producers outside the EU to […]

THREE helicopters from Liberia bombarded a Guinean village near the border between the two West African countries, destroying it by fire and killing one person and wounding two, Guinean military sources said. The attack was the latest in a series of cross-border raids on the West African country near its frontiers with Liberia and neighbouring […]

MOROCCAN mobile phone operator Meditel has arranged a $1bn syndicated loan to finance expansion of its telecoms development projects. Casablanca-based Meditel was set up last year by a consortium led by Spain’s Telefonica after it was awarded a $1.1bn licence to operate the second cellular phone network in Morocco. Meditel launched its GSM mobile phone […]

A JOINT World Bank and International Monetary Fund mission arrived in Ethiopia this week to discuss a new plan to reduce poverty with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s government. Meles last week said he wanted the aid unblocked after donors suspended development aid worth over $1bn in Ethiopia in 1998 following the outbreak of war with […]

STEVEN SWINDELLS, Johannesburg | Tuesday THE unexpected announcement by South Africa’s Reserve Bank that it plans to increase domestic interest rates by 25 basis points at its daily repurchase tender has failed to stop the currency’s woes, sending government bond yields higher and trimming gains on the stock market. South Africa’s beleaguered rand traded at […]

ELLIS MNYANDU AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday ANALYSTS have raised the spectre of a gloomy Christmas for South African consumers and retailers if commercial banks raise their prime lending rates in tandem with the Reserve Bank’s repo rate hike. Evan Walker, a retail sector analyst at Standard Equities, said many retailers would take a […]

ANGLO American Platinum (Angloplat) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) have agreed to a 9% wage increase in a deal that ends a crippling four-week strike. Angloplat’s Mike Mtakati said the agreement is for a period of two years, and negotiations for a raise on the provident fund contribution had been referred to a […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday AN enraged Nehawu, South Africa’s largest public sector union, has appealed to politicians to reject ”morally unacceptable” wage increases of between 5% and 15.5% the day after it averted a national strike by its 240000 members by entering into a new salary agreement with the government. The National Education, […]