President Robert Mugabe’s government has warned it will arrest white Zimbabwean farmers resisting evictions from new land targeted for black farmers, state media reported on Wednesday. Industry and union officials say about 600 of Zimbabwe’s 4Â 500 white farmers have kept their land after the sometimes violent grabs by Mugabe’s supporters.
Eleven South African officials were suspended from office on Wednesday for allegedly helping 10 ”dangerous” inmates escape jail, officials said. ”The 11 officials of the Department of Correctional Services were suspended on Wednesday morning. They have been handed their letters of suspension,” department spokesperson Manelisi Wolela said.
The JSE was still firm at midday on Wednesday on the back of firmer world markets and a slight pick-up in emerging markets. At midday, the FTSE was up 0,43%, the Hang Seng was up 2,87% and the Nikkei was up 0,64%. At 12pm, the JSE all-share index was 1,93% higher.
Pollution intruded on celebrations to mark the one-year countdown to Beijing’s Olympics on Wednesday when Games chief Jacques Rogge said events might have to be rescheduled if air quality is not up to scratch. The International Olympic Committee president said he was happy with preparations but that some competitions might have to be moved.
South African insurer Liberty Group increased interim headline earnings per share, adjusted for the effects of a black economic empowerment (BEE) deal, by 51,5%, the company said on Wednesday. Liberty, 30% owned by Standard Bank, said BEE normalised headline EPS in the six months to end-June was 583,1 cents.
Tickets for South Africa’s 2010 Soccer World Cup will bear both the apartheid-era names of cities and the new ones, reflecting the nation’s evolution while avoiding confusing visitors. South Africa’s government has been changing the names of some cities since the end of apartheid in 1994 but the new names are often not known abroad.
Six new species, including a bat and two frogs, have been discovered in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in an eastern area off limits to scientists for decades because of violence. The Wildlife Conservation Society said researchers conducted a survey of a forested region just west of Lake Tanganyika.
The next object of liberation in South Africa must be the national economy, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said on Tuesday. ”Our people have been given political rights, but they still lack the freedom to participate fully in the market economy,” he said in an online letter.
Food stalls attached to Beijing’s public toilets will be removed in good time for next year’s Olympics, state media said on Saturday. Complaints over toilets with poor sanitation and toilet operators turning them into commercial operations led to the ban, which comes into force in October.
Government investigators found a ”strong probability” on Tuesday that the strain of virus behind an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Britain came from two research labs near the site of the infection. The foot and mouth outbreak poses an immediate threat to Britain’s livestock industry, whose meat exports are worth more than -billion a year.