A South African union said it had launched a strike over wages at Chevron’s 100 000-barrel-per-day refinery in Cape Town and PetroSA’s 36 000 bpd Mossel Bay gas-to-liquid plant. Welile Nolingo, secretary general of the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers’ Union, said the strike would continue until the union’s demands are met.
Growth in demand for credit by South Africa’s private sector quickened to 24,92% year-on-year in June, data showed on Tuesday, hardening the case for another interest rate increase next month. Analysts had expected a new law clamping down on credit lending that came into force in June to have bolstered the central bank’s monetary tightening efforts.
Australian scientists said on Tuesday they had isolated the substance that gives red wine its peppery aroma, allowing them to modulate the bouquet of one of the country’s most popular varieties. The Australian Wine Research Institute said its scientists spent five years trying to find out what gave Shiraz wine its destinctive black pepper fragrance.
The father of two boys who were killed in the 1993 Mthatha raid ordered by FW de Klerk wants the former president to be prosecuted. The twin boys of Sigqibo Mpendulo were shot in their sleep at their home which De Klerk said had been confirmed a Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) safe house.
A record-breaking 180 African immigrants reached the Canary Islands in a single ocean-going canoe on Monday as new super-sized vessels began to be used in the perilous journey from Africa’s Atlantic coast. The 180 sub-Saharan Africans were picked up by a Spanish maritime rescue vessel off the island of Tenerife.
The second South Korean hostage shot dead by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan was identified on Tuesday as Shim Sung-min (29) a former IT firm employee who did volunteer work to help the poor. Afghan authorities recovered his blood-stained body dumped south-west of Kabul.
Pearson, publisher of the Financial Times, said on Monday it would be a ”worthy competitor” for News Corp if Rupert Murdoch’s company succeeded in buying the Wall Street Journal. It said it was exploring TV tie-ups to strengthen its position.
United States President Bush on Monday lavished praise on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at their first summit together, saying he was a man of principle who understood the ideological war against terrorism. But over two days of talks held at Camp David, Brown retained his right to withdraw British troops from Iraq more quickly than the Americans.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said on Friday he is putting the building blocks in place for a community-developed web search service that would compete with search engines such as Google or Yahoo! The new Wikia search service will combine computer-driven algorithms and human-assisted editing.
A picture of death and destruction emerged on Monday as officials counted the cost of veld fires that ravaged several provinces. By late afternoon, nine fires were still burning in Mpumalanga and Swaziland. More runaway fires were also reported in KwaZulu-Natal.