A fund to help Africa overcome obstacles to trade and investment is set to launch its first projects in East Africa after strong backing from corporate donors, officials said on Tuesday. The Investment Climate Facility (ICF) said latest contributors to the fund included Microsoft and South Africa’s Standard Bank.
A fourth man linked to the murder of KwaZulu-Natal historian David Rattray has been arrested, local police said on Wednesday. Superintendent Phindile Radebe said the 27-year-old suspect was arrested on Tuesday night at Helpemekaar, near Rattray’s home.
South African life insurer Metropolitan Holdings increased annual headline earnings per share by 28% and said on Wednesday the outlook for its target markets remained positive. Shares in Metropolitan outperformed rivals as South Africa’s bourse fell 3% in a fresh sell-off sparked by emerging market worries.
United States President George Bush wrapped up a tour of Latin America on Wednesday with little to show for his six-day swing through the region. Bush was due to head home with no substantive deals or immediate evidence that the public relations offensive had salvaged Washington’s reputation in the five countries he visited.
The White House on Tuesday rejected calls by Congress for its senior staff to give evidence in the growing row over the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors. Congress is demanding that Karl Rove, George Bush’s chief political adviser, and others appear before an investigation into allegations that the eight were dismissed on political grounds.
South Africa’s relatively small space programme can still play a significant role in skills development, Professor Sias Mostert of SunSpace and Information Systems in Stellenbosch said on Wednesday. It was a myth that satellite programmes belonged only to larger nations, he said.
The Hamas-run Palestinian government said on Tuesday that it was working to release Alan Johnston, the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Gaza correspondent, saying that it knew who was responsible for his kidnapping. ”This issue is on its way to being solved, God willing,” said Ghazi Hamad, a government spokesperson.
Late on Monday Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama went head to head for a key demographic group: Jewish voters. Supporters from the Clinton and Obama camps flooded the hallways of the Washington Convention Centre, distributing fliers and shouting through loudhailers in their bid to draw people in.
The crisis in the United States sub-prime mortgage market was the hot topic on the JSE just after midday on Wednesday as the local bourse, together with its global counterparts, followed Wall Street south. With commodities also taking strain, the local bourse was hit by a double whammy.
The scene is a Starbucks in Regent Street, London. Two 23-year-old women from Trinity College, Dublin, are doing a five-minute pitch from a laptop to a couple of serious venture capitalists. It is the cappuccino version of TV programmes such as <i>Dragons’ Den</i> and it is telling us a lot about the vitality of the new internet start-up boom in the United Kingdom.