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/ 8 February 2008
Mutual & Federal’s full-year headline earnings per share (EPS) fell 15,5% after underwriting earnings at the South African insurer declined, the group said on Friday. Mutual & Federal, majority-owned by insurer Old Mutual, said headline EPS fell to 305 cents in the year to end December from 361 cents.
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/ 8 February 2008
Some of the 17 fires that were raging through the Western Cape on Thursday were under control in the evening, said Cape Town chief fire officer Ian Schnetler. ”Firefighters are still battling the blaze at Naval Base as the winds are making the situation worse,” he said.
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/ 8 February 2008
Energy-rich Nigeria has approved a new policy requiring gas producers to direct a part of their output to the domestic market, rather than exporting it, a presidential statement said on Friday. Under the new policy regime, "all oil and gas developers in the country are to allocate a specified amount of gas from their reserves and annual production to the domestic market", it said.
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/ 8 February 2008
A 16-year-old schoolboy who stabbed a fellow pupil to death was sentenced to six years in prison, suspended for five years, by the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Friday. The youth may not be named as he is a minor. He was ordered not to commit a similar crime within five years or he would be arrested.
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/ 8 February 2008
More than 80 alleged mobsters were on Thursday night in jail or on the run in New York and Sicily after what was hailed as the biggest transatlantic strike against Cosa Nostra in almost 25 years. United States law enforcement officials arrested 54 suspects, including three said to be important members of New York’s Gambino crime family.
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/ 8 February 2008
A Thai soccer referee was beaten up by an entire team after sending off three of their players during a match to decide promotion to country’s second division, local media reported on Friday. Referee Prakong Sukguamala needed 50 stitches and also broke a finger after being attacked by the Kuiburi FC squad.
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/ 8 February 2008
South African Rugby Union (Saru) deputy president Mike Stofile faces questions after Saru’s audit committee found he had no mandate to discuss the future of former Bulls coach Heyneke Meyer with him. Stofile, who has ambitions to defeat president Oregan Hoskins at Saru’s presidential elections next month, met Meyer on January 22 in Johannesburg.
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/ 8 February 2008
John McCain effectively secured the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday when his main rival, Mitt Romney, near to tears, dropped out of the race. Only one person now stands between McCain and the United States presidency: the Democratic choice for the November election.
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/ 8 February 2008
An estate agent who took a prospective buyer to view a house in central England found the owner hanging dead in a cupboard, the agency said Thursday. It was the first viewing of the £350 000 ( 000) house which had been on the market for a week.
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/ 8 February 2008
Tobacco use could kill a billion people this century unless governments act now to reduce smoking, the United Nations said on Thursday. In a strongly-worded report the World Health Organisation, the UN’s public health arm, said no country was doing all it could to curb tobacco use.