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 […]

SOUTH Africa’s Anglo-American Platinum Corporation (Amplats) says production at the world’s biggest platinum producer has been unaffected by a strike that started this week. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said its work stoppage was gaining momentum with around 10000 members off the job since Monday night. An Amplats spokesman said only 5500 workers out […]

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 […]

THE man known as the “saloon killer”, Velaphi Ndlangamandla, who killed 19 people in a five-month reign of terror in Mpumalanga in 1998, has been sentenced to 137 years’ imprisonment. Ndlangamandla, 34, was convicted of 19 murder charges, nine of attempted murder, six robbery charges, one attempted robbery charge, five housebreaking charges (three of housebreaking […]

ZIMBABWE President Robert Mugabe has made a rare concession on his plan to confiscate farms for redistribution to landless blacks, telling one of the country’s biggest corporate landowners, Anglo American, that it could keep sugar estate and cattle ranches that had originally been listed for confiscation. A powerful South African-based mining conglomerate, Anglo American owns […]

AN Egyptian mother has been arrested for tying her mentally unstable son in his bed and leaving him to die, police said. Fawqiya Mahmud Ismail tied her 19-year-old son Hazim Taha Ibrahim to his bed by his arms and legs after he had a screaming fit and caused a disturbance. Ibrahim, an arts student in […]

AN IRAQI delegation has left for South Africa to examine cooperation plans to rebuild Iraq’s electricity sector. Delegation chief Saleh Yussef Qazir, who heads up the Iraqi electricity office, said he would talk with South African electricity officials about “the basis for cooperation over production and distribution of electric energy.” He said the talks would […]