SARAH BULLEN and Reuters, Cape Town | Thursday 10.45am COMBINED gold and foreign exchange reserves beat economists’ forecast continuing their upwards rise in November to $7,4-billion — a $500-million rise from October’s reserves, Reserve Bank figures released on Thursday show. In rand terms this translates into a rise of R2,6-billion to R45,2-billion from October’s R42,6-billion. […]

MOTOR vehicle exports helped push total exports in October to a record high of R14,946-billion, according to an analyst quoted in The Star on Wednesday. Trade figures released by the South African Revenue Service Tuesday showed exports in October were 8,3% higher than in September. The advance was due mainly to a R688,6-billion in the […]

SARAH BULLEN, Cape Town | Wednesday 10.30am CAPE Town on Wednesday is still feeling the after shock of the St Elmo’s bomb blast after two of its larger hotels received bomb threats on Tuesday night. No bombs, however, were found. The pipe bomb blast that destroyed St Elmo’s, a popular pizzeria in Camps Bay, injured […]

THE Angolan Central Bank launched a new currency, the kwanza, on Wednesday as part of a monetary reform program to simplify small transactions. “If you want to buy something small, you have to use large packets of readjusted kwanzas,” Aguinaldo Jaime, the central bank governor, said. “That is something we want to correct.” Indeed, the […]

PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday referred the appointment of a new 12-member board for the SABC to Cabinet on Tuesday instead of mooting the choice, fuelling fuelling speculation that he is not satisfied with the candidates. The National Assembly’s communications committee’s recommendations were adopted by all parties in Parliament, except the Democratic Party, which raised […]

THE son of a senior ANC leader in KwaZulu-Natal has been murdered. Vuyani Nkosi, 33, son of the provincial legislature deputy speaker, Willies Mchunu, was shot dead on Tuesday night at his home in Durban’s Chesterville Township. Nkosi, who was the ANC branch chairman Chesterville, was shot at four times and revolver cartridges were found […]

WESTERN Cape police commissioner Lennit Max says transforming the police service to make it representative of the communities it serves and a crackdown on corruption are among his priorities, reports Marianne Merten. The former Eastern Cape deputy commissioner on Wednesday morning officially assumed office in the province which this week was rocked by another bomb […]

WEDNESDAY marks the 161st anniversary of the emancipation of slaves in South Africa. The first slave ship arrived in the Cape in 1657. Among the initial unwilling immigrants was a group from Dahomey in West Africa. Later the majority came from countries around the Indian Ocean — sometimes as political prisoners, sometimes as criminals. Although […]

PLATINUM dealers and analysts greeted warily Wednesday’s news that Russia has moved closer to unblocking platinum exports, but said the price will tumble in the medium term as metal comes onto the market. Spot platinum dipped $3 from its New York close to $437/$442 on the release of the news, but quickly recovered to $441.50/$446.50. […]

VODACOM announced on Wednesday that it has appointed Wendy Luhabe non-Executive chairperson of the Vodacom Group with effect from 1 January 2000. Luhabe is the founding of human rescources group Bridging the Gap. In 1997, the World Economic Forum named her one of the “Global Leaders for Tomorrow”. She was one of the founders of […]