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, […]

SOUTH Africa’s Sasol has signed final agreements with US oil company Chevron Corp to set up a new company to deal with global gas-to-liquids (GTL) ventures. The joint venture intends to use GTL ventures worldwide with investments planned in excess of $5bn over the next five to 10 years, Sasol said in a statement. GTL […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Bloemfontein | Tuesday THE world is failing to feed those who need it most, with some 80 million children dying worldwide every year through malnutrition, says the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). And while the potential exists to produce enough food for everyone in the world, about 20% of people in […]

Gavin Pattison, Gulu, Uganda | Tuesday HEALTH officials in northern Uganda say they will use force if necessary to impose a quarantine on three districts at the centre of an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus – an incurable viral disease which liquefies victims’ internal organs and leads to death by bleeding in up to […]

THE water requirements of a rare, inch-long toad native to Tanzania’s southern highlands have prevented a hydro-electric plant in the area operating at full capacity, a local newspaper reported. The habitat of the Kihansi Spray Toad needs as much water, about seven cubic metres per second, as is used to generate 52 megawatts of electricity. […]