Sasol’s coal-to-liquid technology is making headlines from Johannesburg to Beijing and New York. It has scored big with the coal industry as a way for coal-rich countries such as the United States, China and South Africa to reduce their dependency on imported fuel from hotspots such as the Middle East and Nigeria.
Zimbabwe’s remaining foreign investors, who have chosen to ride out the world’s fastest economic decline, could see their patience rewarded with the seizure of at least half their assets if radicals in President Robert Mugabe’s government have their way. Empowerment Minister Paul Mangwana is set to push a new law through Parliament whose ”various measures will accelerate the implementation of the indigenisation”.
Debate on how to strengthen the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), occasioned by its 10th anniversary, will not achieve the desired outcome if led by critics who are distanced from the institution. This includes the press. Earlier this year, NCOP chairperson Mninwa Mahlangu remarked that in general, the media had scant knowledge of the council.
As many consumers of traditional news media, especially in the developed world, have moved to the internet to keep up to date, so another exodus has started: from the web to other digital media, especially cellphones. This was the message at a precursor on Sunday to the World Editors Forum and World Newspaper Congress running until June 6.
The government warned striking health workers to return to work on Monday or face being fired while soldiers staffed hospitals and private ambulance services moved seriously-ill babies to private facilities. ”If they are not at their workplace [by Monday], then we will be instituting a process of terminating their services,” said national director general of health Thamsanqa Dennis Mseleku.
A birdie on the final hole at Celtic Manor earned South African Richard Sterne a one-stroke Wales Open victory on Sunday. While Sterne birdied the final hole for a four-under 65 to set the 13-under 263 target, home favourite Bradley Dredge bogeyed the 18th to lose the chance of becoming the first Welshman to win his national title.
Lebanese troops directed artillery and tank barrages at al-Qaeda-inspired militants dug in at a Palestinian refugee camp on Sunday, the third day of an assault to crush the gunmen. After 12 days of sporadic shelling, the army on Friday attacked Fatah al-Islam positions with the declared aim of wiping out the militants.
Soldiers, volunteers and private hospitals have stepped in to help public-health facilities crippled by the public-service pay strike which started on Friday. Army medics were on duty from 8am on Sunday in wards of the hard-hit King Edward VIII hospital, in Durban.
For some time, there had been signs — if you cared to read such things — that Lindsay Lohan’s life was about to take a very public turn for the worse. Early last month, she appeared on former jailbird Martha Stewart’s TV show, wearing a Fifties throwback cocktail dress and whipping up a tray of cream puffs.
International Cricket Council president Percy Sonn, who died last weekend following complications after undergoing minor colon surgery, was laid to rest in Cape Town on Saturday. Hundreds of people gathered at St George’s cathedral in the city centre for a funeral service.