TEN people, including children, were killed when a wedding party was bombed during the military assault on Muslim rebels on the remote Philippine island of Jolo. Many of the 700 civilian evacuees, arriving in nearby Zamboanga after fleeing the assault on the Abu Sayyaf rebels on Jolo, reported hearing artillery and bomb explosions day and […]

SOUTH Africa’s Finance Ministry has frustrated efforts by Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin to create a strong package of incentives aimed at wooing foreign investors, a local newspaper has reported. Business Report, citing unnamed government sources, said the cabinet had approved three incentives earlier this month: a development programme for SMEs, a skills support […]

SOUTH Africa’s Metropolitan Life (Metlife) says it is confident of its future as a stand-alone entity despite the failure of a planned merger with life assurer Sanlam. Sanlam, Metlife and black empowerment company New Africa Investments Ltd (Nail) said this week they had called off talks to form South Africa’s second largest financial services group […]

RATINGS agency Duff & Phelps Africa has accorded South African Eagle Insurance Co a domestic claims paying ability rating of AA – among the highest ratings accorded to a local insurer, defining it as an organisation with a very high claims-paying ability. SA Eagle got the rating on the basis of its good risk diversification, […]

Former South African president Nelson Mandela and regional African leaders have begun arriving in Kenya for a summit aimed at consolidating a fragile peace accord in the tiny nation of Burundi.

SOUTH Africa’s main savings ratio was flat at 15.5% of gross domestic product in the second quarter of 2000, says the Reserve Bank. ”Private sector saving deteriorated in the second quarter of 2000, but there has been a positive contribution by general government to the national saving effort for the first time since 1991,” the […]

ZIMBABWE’S commercial farmers have welcomed the eviction of war veterans from five white-owned farms and urged President Robert Mugabe to restore order on hundreds of other occupied farms. Armed police this week destroyed shacks and evicted hundreds of black liberation war veterans and their supporters from five farms outside the capital Harare, police said. Government […]

Ongeri John, Dar es Salaam | Tuesday THE opposition Civic United Front (CUF), which lost presidential elections on the semi-autonomous islands of Zanzibar by 0,4% in 1995, has criticised police for allegedly siding with the ruling party in a series of public clashes that has left hundreds imprisoned and scores in hospital. CUF presidential candidate […]

STEVEN MANN, Cape Town | Tuesday IT could take up to 20 years before the government realises its goal of providing all South Africans with access to clean water, Water Affairs Minister Ronnie Kasrils has admitted. Kasrils told a media briefing in Parliament while running water had been laid on for six million South Africans […]

CONCERNS still remain about the reliability of local transport, criminal activity at bus stops and ongoing intimidation of commuters in Khayelitsha outside Cape Town, where turf wars between taxi operators and bus companies claimed several lives earlier this year. This is in spite of relative calm having returned to the township, according to a report […]