The co-chief executive of the European aerospace group EADS and the head of its Airbus subsidiary paid with their jobs on Sunday for the crisis that has wiped billions of euros off the value of the company. The two companies issued terse statements announcing EADS’s French co-boss Noel Forgeard and Airbus’s head Gustav Humbert, a German, were stepping down.
Four men have been arrested in connection with the rape of two foreign missionaries and the shooting of one of them on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast. Captain Vincent Pandarum said the two women — one from Kenya and the other from the United States — were raped on Friday night as they were walking home on the Old Harding Road near Oslo Beach.
It seems the African Union (AU) is repeating the ”sad past” of the old Organisation for African Unity, particularly with regard to Zimbabwe and Sudan, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has again outwitted President Thabo Mbeki, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and the AU, DA foreign affairs spokesman Douglas Gibson said.
London-listed platinum explorer African Platinum (Afplats) on Monday announced a resource update for its Imbasa and Inkosi properties in South Africa that resulted in a 73% increase in its total mineral resources, when the company’s Leeuwkop property was included, to 92-million ounces.
A small outbreak of avian influenza was detected on an ostrich farm about 30km west of Mossel Bay in the Western Cape, the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs said on Monday. Preliminary surveillance indicated that the outbreak was probably limited to the single farm on which it was detected and which had been put under quarantine, the department added.
German prosecutors have not approached the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to help investigate possible kickbacks in a sale of four corvettes to the South African Navy. NPA spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said on Monday the office had received no requests from the German authorities on the issue.
South Africa’s revised Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regulations came into effect on Monday, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism announced. ”It’s all systems go … we are happy that the new regulations are now law in this country,” department spokesperson JP Louw said. The new regulations had been revised to be quicker, simpler and better, and resulted from a substantial consultative process.
Three Palestinian militant groups holding a teenage Israeli soldier on Monday set Israel a one-day deadline to meet their demands to free Palestinian prisoners. ”Faced with the Zionist enemy’s persistence in taking military measures and aggressions, we give it a delay expiring Tuesday, July 4 at 6am,” said a statement issued by the Popular Resistance Committees.
The JSE was slightly firmer just after midday on Monday, benefiting from higher commodity prices. Volumes were extremely light, however, ahead of Tuesday’s Independence Day holiday in the US. By 12.15pm, the all-share index inched up 0,15%. Resources rose 0,21%, the gold-mining index gained 0,72% and the platinum-mining index perked up 1,26%.
The hard-line supreme leader of Somalia’s Islamic courts on Monday denied any affiliation with al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and said his group takes no orders from outsiders. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys said Bin Laden’s weekend message to Somali Islamists "has nothing to do with us".