Astronomers and the simply curious have flocked to Libya, reputedly the best place in the world to view Wednesday’s total eclipse of the sun, as the former pariah state bids for tourist dollars. The north African desert nation opened its air and sea ports to 7 000 eclipse lovers from 47 countries.
Junior platinum miner Eland Platinum made its debut on the JSE on Wednesday after raising R525-million via a private placing. The capital is to go towards building the Elandsfontein platinum project at a cost of R1,4-billion, with peak funding of one billion rand.
There could be "inflationary consequences" for South Africa if economic growth was higher than the annual 4,5% rate shown by research to be the country’s potential output rate, according to South African Reserve Bank (SARB) governor Tito Mboweni.
Gold exploration company Wits Gold was likely to list on the JSE in the middle of April as part of the company’s strategy and to increase the company’s profile, chief executive officer Marc Watchorn said on Wednesday. In 2004, the company acquired gold resources from AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields and Harmony Gold.
China’s health ministry banned the sale of human organs on Tuesday in a move that could put pressure on the growing transplant tourism industry. According to tour operators, Britons and other foreigners have been paying tens of thousands of dollars for life-saving operations in China, where livers, kidneys, hearts and lungs are harvested from executed prisoners.
Vitamin salesman Matthias Rath has dropped his defamation claims against the South African Press Association (Sapa) and other media organisations. However, he was still suing the Democratic Alliance, its leader Tony Leon, its health spokesperson Diane Kohler-Barnard, and African National Congress MP Kader Asmal, said his lawyer.
After giving birth to healthy twins, Mrs A, a young Indian woman, handed them to a United States-based couple knowing she was unlikely to see them again. ”Her parents never knew what she was doing,” her mother-in-law confides. ”She told them she had a baby boy but he passed away.”
South Africa’s consumer price index excluding mortgage rate changes (CPIX) for metro and other areas, which is used by the South African Reserve Bank for its inflation target, rose by 4,5% year-on-year (y/y) in February after increasing by 4,3% y/y in January, Statistics South Africa said on Wednesday.
Most adolescents in the United States are sleep deprived, jeopardising their mental, emotional and physical growth and damaging their performance in the classrom, said a study published on Tuesday. The problem could even be fatal, as adolescents learn to drive often without enough sleep, the study said.
China, officially celebrating the ‘Year of Italy’, has reacted angrily to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s comments that Chinese people used to ”boil babies”. ”We are not satisfied with such remarks, which are groundless and lack any facts,” the foreign ministry said in a brief statement faxed to Agence France-Presse on Wednesday.