The Competition Commission has recommended to the Competition Tribunal that the sale of Johncom’s effective 38,56% stake in M-Net and SuperSport to Naspers be approved without any conditions. The matter will be set down for hearing by the Competition Tribunal in due course, Johncom said on Thursday.
Once surrounded by African presidential splendour, former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor now lives in a Dutch prison with only a Congolese militia chief for company and food he finds foul. The ousted Liberian president feels isolated in the Hague, his lawyer told Reuters ahead of the start of Taylor’s trial on Monday.
French hopes of a first men’s singles title at Roland Garros since Yannick Noah nearly a quarter of a century ago lay in tatters on Wednesday after the defeat of their top players in two rounds. Veterans Sebastien Grosjean (28), Arnaud Clement (29) and Fabrice Santoro (34) all failed to make it past the first round.
Angola and Nigeria could become the first two sides to book their berths at the African Nations Cup finals if they win their weekend qualifiers and their closest challengers are beaten. The two are among four sides with 100% records halfway through the qualifying competition,
China urged the international community on Thursday to show patience with Sudan and said new sanctions would only complicate efforts to implement a United Nations peace plan for Darfur. The United States imposed unilateral sanctions on Sudan earlier this week and sought support for an international arms embargo.
The Afro-Asia series in India will go ahead as scheduled next week after the ESPN-Star network stepped in to save the beleaguered event, the Asian Cricket Council said on Thursday. The series, featuring three one-dayers and a Twenty20 match between Asia and Africa from June 5 to 10, was in jeopardy after the original rights holder pulled out.
Growth in demand for credit by South Africa’s private sector quickened to 25,08% year-on-year in April, central bank data showed on Thursday, making another interest rate increase next week more likely. Credit growth accelerated from a downwardly revised 24,09% in March while the broadly defined M3 measure of money supply grew by 22,27%.
A former top South African defence official resigned after suspecting corruption over an arms deal involving BAE Systems, Thales and others, a report said on Thursday. Pierre Steyn said he left office in 1998 because he was not content proper safeguards were in place which would allow him to prevent or expose corruption in the bidding process.
South Africa’s producer price inflation (PPI) accelerated to 11,1% year-on-year in April after a 10,3% increase in March, far above forecasts, official data showed on Thursday. On a monthly basis, PPI increased by 1,7% after a 1,2% increase in March. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast that annual PPI would come in at 10,4%.
Britain’s newest visitor attraction, a theme park dedicated to novelist Charles Dickens, offers a taste of the grim world of Victorian London stalked by characters like Oliver Twist, Ebenezer Scrooge and David Copperfield. In the naval dockyard town of Chatham in south-east England’s Kent, where Dickens lived and worked, Dickens World opened its doors over the weekend.