Africa’s top banking group by assets, Standard Bank, has received approval to merge its Stanbic Nigeria unit with IBTC Chartered Bank, the firm said on Monday. Standard Bank said it had increased its offer price to 16 naira per share from 11,74 naira per IBTC share, valuing the offer at -million.
Hiring security firms to guard certain police stations was proof that the police had failed to combat crime, Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) KwaZulu-Natal leader Lionel Mtshali said on Monday. Mtshali said: ”Presumably, the idea is to free fully-trained police officers to perform their core function of preventing and combating crime”.
Children in Gaza and Zimbabwe desperately need help to ensure they have food, clean water and schooling, a senior United Nations official said on Monday. Dan Toole, director of emergency programmes for Unicef, said a shortage of donor cash was having a dramatic effect in the territories.
An Ethiopian court sentenced 35 opposition members to life in prison on Monday, rebuffing a prosecution request that they be executed for trying to overthrow the government, treason and inciting violence. The remaining eight defendants were ordered to serve terms of between 18 months and 18 years.
Nora Bannerman checks the pristine white uniforms made for American pharmacist Walgreens in her factory in the humid heart of Accra. Her Sleek Garments company exports shirts, pants and uniforms under the African Growth and Opportunity Act.
Most Germans don’t believe money can buy happiness, according to a survey released on Monday, which found that only 13% of German men care deeply about becoming rich. The figure for women is even lower, with only 6% saying they regard wealth as an important goal, according to the poll.
Fishermen in Zanzibar have caught a coelacanth, an ancient fish once thought to have become extinct when it disappeared from fossil records 80-million years ago, an official said on Sunday. Researcher Nariman Jidawi of Zanzibar’s Institute of Marine Science said the fish was caught off the tropical island’s northern tip.
The case of Annanias Mathe, the Mozambican national charged with escaping from Pretoria’s C-Max prison, was postponed yet again in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Monday. The case was postponed to October 5 in order to centralise all the charges against Mathe.
At least 85 people were killed on Monday by a suicide truck bomb in the volatile Iraqi city of Kirkuk, some of them trapped on a bus where they burned to death, according to a witness. Police also said 180 people were wounded and they warned the death toll could rise from the blast that heightened tension in the northern city.
Efforts to end the four-year conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region by paving the way for new talks between Khartoum and fragmented rebel groups took a step forward at a meeting in Libya on Monday. International envoys and rebel groups, which failed to sign up to a May 2006 peace deal, will meet next month to fix a date and venue for the start of negotiations.