NIGERIA has voted to launch a wide-ranging inquiry into the activities of state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp (NNPC). Lawmakers said a probe of the NNPC, which oversees Nigeria’s mainstay oil industry and produces crude oil in joint venture with major multinationals, could be a first step towards a wider investigation of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government. […]

DAVID LUHNOW, London | Wednesday DESPITE a busy first six months, Anglo-South African insurer Old Mutual is still eyeing opportunities in the US, UK and emerging markets, company officials said. It had lost its bid for Edinburgh-based mutual assurer, Scottish Provident, which industry sources say has agreed to 2bn deal with the UK’s Abbey National […]

WARDERS in Kenya have shot and killed six naked death row inmates during an attempted escape from a maximum security prison. Police spokesman Peter Kimanthi said two other death row convicts had managed to escape from King’ong’o Maximum Security Prison in the town of Nyeri, 200km north of the capital Nairobi. He said warders opened […]

THE United Nations is moving to stem a humanitarian disaster unfolding in the isolated Angolan town of Luau, where about 10 people a day are reported to be starving to death. The UN plans to dispatch this coming week an inter-agency assessment mission including an initial load of food, medical and other assistance. The UN […]

THE World Health Organisation (WHO) has launched a massive vaccination campaign against yellow fever in Liberia, and has sent 30 000 vaccine doses to prevent a deadly outbreak in Sierra Leone. The United Nations health agency said the mosquito-borne disease has spread to six of Liberia’s 14 counties, including the outskirts of Monrovia, a capital […]

ENGINEERING and contracting firm, Murray & Roberts, said it had won a R1bn five-year contract to supply castings for Ford’s new 1.3 and 1.6 litre RoCam engines. In the first phase of the contract, the foundries in Port Elizabeth, Brits and Cape Town will supply components for 55000 engines, rising to 180000 a year. The […]

A TWO-year-old toddler is recovering in the intensive care unit of a Cairo hospital after falling from a sixth floor balcony. Isra Hassan Ramadan was playing with her brothers on the balcony of their flat in the Abu Wafiya district of northern Cairo when she plummeted to the street below. She was taken to the […]

INTERNATIONAL fugitive and former Anglican bishop Samuel Musabyimana, wanted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity by the United Nations Tribunal for Rwanda, has been released by mistake due to bungling by the police’s Scorpions unit, SABC radio news reported. Musabyimana entered South Africa on a false passport this year and was arrested in […]

THE Nigerian government has given communities in the country’s oil-producing region a two-week deadline to stop vandalising oil pipelines or face the deployment of soldiers to maintain security. The managing director of the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Jackson Gaius-Obaseki, said the company has lost more than US$34.7m this year through pipeline vandalisation. In […]

REUTERS, Johannesburg | Tuesday FOUR South African companies had teamed up to form Prosperity, the country’s first black-owned and second-largest firm of benefit consultants and actuaries. NBC Financial Services, Kopana Ke Matla Investment Company, Plc Holdings and Peregrine were the partners in the new group, worth R100m. Kopano is the investment arm of COSATU while […]