Sasol Mining’s black economic empowerment (BEE) ownership component will reach about 20% by 2009 and full compliance with the Mining Charter by 2014, the company said on Thursday. The wholly-owned coal-mining business of Sasol Limited said the first phase of its empowerment strategy entailed the formation of Igoda Coal.
The 2006 football World Cup is bringing the Japanese economy a windfall of -billion in television sales, tourism and other spin-off economic activities, a survey said on Thursday. Japan’s top advertising agency, Dentsu, said that if Japan reaches the semifinals or final the total will swell to ,6-billion.
The International Red Cross said on Wednesday that a total of 4 094 cases of cholera, including 79 deaths, were reported in the southern Sudanese city of Juba since the outbreak of the disease there last month. ”As of March 7, the total number of cases of acute watery diarrhea reported in Juba was 4 094.”
China’s annual gold output is currently increasing at a rate of 5% a year, and by 2009 the country could surpass South Africa or Australia as the world’s number one gold miner, New York-based CPM group managing director Jeffery Christian said on Thursday. South Africa has been the world’s largest gold miner for decades.
A South African tribunal is hearing a case against the biggest steel producer in Africa, Mittal Steel, following complaints of overpricing by two gold mining companies. The Competition Tribunal started hearing the case brought by Harmony Gold and Durban Roodepoort Deep Gold on Wednesday.
Olympic champions South Africa backed up their pre-Games taunts towards Australia on Thursday with a Commonwealth Games record swimming performance in the 4x100m men’s relay that ended the host nation’s 28-year stranglehold on the event.
Liberia’s new leader, the first woman elected president of an African country, on Wednesday urged American lawmakers to help her make Liberia ”America’s success story in Africa”. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf compared Liberia’s devastation from two decades of warfare to that done by the December 2004 tsunami in Asia.
"There are only two kinds of people in the world: the Irish and those who wish they were." So goes one Irish adage. And on Friday millions will get a wish come true, with parades and parties marking St Patrick’s Day which, just like Irish immigrant communities, have spread to become a global excuse for a bit of <i>craic</i>, or fun.
Paper planes have soared way beyond the classroom. Now every bored schoolboy’s elicit past-time has become a worldwide sport with thousands of fans battling to carry off the championships. ”The secret of a good plane is patience, symmetry and a good eye to feel where you need to fold,” said Nicolas Deschamps,
People like portable gadgets, and Microsoft hopes they’ll like a device that packs much of the power of a desktop PC, with all the multimedia capabilities of a portable MP3 and movie player, plus the convenience of a PDA with W-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, into a device that will fit into a handbag or large pocket.