Poor performance and the effect of diseases such as Aids are two major challenges facing the African transport industry, Minister of Transport Jeff Radebe said on Monday. Radebe said the cost of border-post delays to the Southern African Development Community region is estimated at -million annually.
About 15 000 people demonstrated at the weekend in Angola’s restive oil-rich Cabinda region to demand a truce between government forces and separatists fighting Luanda for about four decades. Shouting ”We want peace”, the demonstrators on Sunday took to the streets of the Cabinda capital.
Laurance Rockefeller, a conservationist, philanthropist and leading figure in the field of venture capital, died in his sleep on Sunday morning. He was 94. The cause of death was pulmonary fibrosis, his spokesperson said in a statement. Rockefeller was number 377 on this year’s Forbes magazine list of 587 billionaires, with ,5-billion.
The recently announced review of regulations hampering small business must include input from business, the Centre for Development Enterprise (CDE) said on Monday. The organisation said a new CDE report confirms that the government’s support for entrepreneurship in South Africa has been largely misdirected
The De Beers diamond group of South Africa, the world’s largest supplier of rough diamonds, has agreed to plead guilty to price-fixing charges and is now set to return to the United States market after an absence of 60 years, the Financial Times reported on Monday.
Trade ministers from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries worked on Saturday to hammer out a joint position on global trade to protect their mainly agriculture-based economies in hardball negotiations with the world’s most powerful nations. The one-day meet took place in the northern resort town of Grand Bay in Mauritius.
There is enormous potential for shark eco-tourism in the Eastern Cape, according to British shark researcher Matt Dicken. A marine biologist based at Bayworld at present, Dicken was speaking at an international marine seminar and expo at the University of Port Elizabeth last week.
The South African Communist Party in Gauteng has elected a new leadership at its eighth congress, which ended on Sunday. The congress started on Friday in Johnnesburg. SACP spokesperson Kaizer Mohau said Vishwa Satgar maintains his position as provincial secretary. Bob Mabaso was re-elected chairperson.
Former employees of three independent Zimbabwean newspapers shut down by the Media and Information Commission (MIC) are struggling to make ends meet. ”We have established that a substantial number of them [staff of now-defunct newspapers] are living in near destitution,” said the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists’ president, Matthew Takaona.
By Monday morning there was still no news of Leigh Matthews who was kidnapped on Friday, the day before her 21st birthday, police said. ”We heard nothing over the night,” said police Superintendent Chris Wilken. Matthews’ parents, Rob and Sharon, have appealed to her kidnappers to release her safely.
Dramatic Jo’burg kidnapping case