Greater liberalisation of international trade would open up market opportunities for South African agriculture, and the important reforms the country has undertaken over the last 20 years have prepared it to reap the benefits, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in a report released on Wednesday.
Pulp and paper group Sappi has announced that as part of its ongoing support of the South African government’s broad-based black economic empowerment (BEE) objectives, 25% of its South African plantation land portfolio would be sold to an empowerment consortium.
Chadian President Idriss Déby on Tuesday said he had full control of the country after last week’s failed rebel offensive and vowed presidential elections would go ahead as planned on May 3. ”We have the situation in hand throughout the whole of Chad,” Déby told a press conference in N’djamena, the capital that was rocked by a rebel offensive last Thursday.
Chelsea may need just a point to retain their Premiership title when Manchester United arrive at Stamford Bridge a week on Saturday but that won’t stop the second-placed visitors from going all out to erase a bitter recent memory. United, on the instruction of manager Alex Ferguson, formed a guard of honour to applaud the newly-crowned champions on to the Old Trafford pitch last season.
Online advertising revenue in South Africa is expected to reach R183-million in 2006, and to pass the R200-million mark in 2007, according to a new survey from World Wide Worx. It took the online publishing industry nine years, from 1994 to 2003, to grow to the R60-million revenue mark, yet it is set to treble that amount in the subsequent three years.
Scientists have discovered the remains of seven carnivorous dinosaurs that travelled in packs throughout an area of southern Argentina nicknamed Jurassic Park, one of the palaeontologists said on Tuesday. ”This is a new type of carnivorous dinosaur, known as the Mapusaurus, that lived some 90-million years ago, said Argentine palaeontologist Rodolfo Coria.
A free-trade deal between the United States and five Southern African countries remains deadlocked over key issues following a day of talks in Pretoria, a top US official said on Tuesday. The free-trade agreement between the US and the Southern African Customs Union, was first mooted in 2002 and the deal was expected to be in place by December 2004.
Ludovic Giuly scored off a pass from Ronaldinho on Tuesday to give FC Barcelona a 1-0 win over AC Milan in the first leg of the Champions League semifinals. The France forward beat an offside trap to send a left-foot shot past Milan goalkeeper Dida in the 57th minute after a chipped pass from the 2005 European and Fifa World Player of the Year at the San Siro.
A restaurateur who admitted he exposed himself to a woman in a subway car, an act the woman captured with her cellphone camera, was sentenced on Tuesday to two years probation and ordered to undergo counselling. Daniel Hoyt (43), of New York, was sentenced in Manhattan Criminal Court on his guilty plea to public lewdness, a misdemeanour.
President Robert Mugabe has threatened to bring down ”the full wrath of the law” against anyone who disturbs Zimbabwean peace and stability. The threat, made in a speech on Tuesday, came after calls by the country’s main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, for street protests to topple Mugabe’s 26-year rule.