A top executive at the Coega industrial zone has assured Rio Tinto its planned smelter is still viable, despite the mining company’s decision to delay the project due to an electricity crisis. Rio announced on Thursday it would delay the project at Coega, near Port Elizabeth, because of power shortages in South Africa.
It might have been called Harry Potter and the Eternal Sequel. Faced with the last in a series of books that ended with a climactic showdown, the producers of the ,5-billion-and-counting Harry Potter film franchise did what came naturally: they decided to turn the final installment into two films.
The resources index kept the JSE in firmer territory by midday on Friday, enhancing the morning session’s gains. At noon, the JSE’s broader all-share index was up 1%, driven by the 1,75% advance in the resources index. The gold mining index recovered 0,06% but the platinum mining index gave up 0,23%.
Albie Morkel took four wickets and Johan Botha three to help South Africa bundle out Bangladesh for a paltry 143 runs on Friday in the third and final one-day international, moving them closer to a clean sweep of the series. Bangladesh captain Mohammad Ashraful sent his side to bat after winning the toss, but they started losing wickets from the 10th over.
For one spring evening in a blue-tiled mosque just south of Tehran, it sounds and feels as though the hour of the Iranian reformists has come again. The mosque is packed with men and boys chanting the name of Mohammad Khatami. They push and shove in the hope of catching a glimpse of the former president who tried to smooth some of the sharp edges of the Islamic republic.
Kidnappers of a Chaldean Catholic archbishop found dead in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul had demanded a -million ransom, a senior police official said on Friday. Paulos Faraj Rahho, the archbishop of Mosul, 390km north of Baghdad, was abducted on February 29 after gunmen attacked his car and killed his driver and two guards.
Eskom is to begin with ”pre-emptive load-shedding” on March 31, chief executive Jacob Maroga said on Friday. These deliberate power failures would last no more than two hours and would take place between 6am and 10pm. ”The system remains tight,” he told reporters in Midrand.
Allegations of disorder on the main campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) contained in an anonymous email circulated country were untrue, Rector Frederick Fourie said on Thursday. The email apparently makes reference to incidents of intimidation by black students on the main campus in Bloemfontein on March 4.
The sex worker at the centre of the scandal that brought down the governor of New York state, Eliot Spitzer, has become the most sought after person in the United States, with camera crews camped outside her Manhattan apartment and her MySpace page inundated with traffic.
Barack Obama faced potential damage to his campaign on Thursday after television networks aired footage of sermons by the former pastor of Obama’s church likening the Democratic frontrunner to Jesus and declaring: ”God damn America.”