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/ 9 December 2005
What a difference three quarters of a year can make. In April this year, the South African gold industry was characterised by the cacophonous strains of a sector strangled by a strong rand and rising input costs and about to breathe its last. It had just announced that production output from last year had fallen to 308 tonnes — its worst level since 1930.
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/ 9 December 2005
The robust defence of ”rendition” (flying terror suspects abroad for interrogation) offered recently by the United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, marks the export to a European audience of a position on torture that is becoming increasingly uncomfortable for the George W Bush administration.
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/ 9 December 2005
Mozambique has to develop a more systematic response to chronic drought, which is having a devastating effect on the food security and livelihoods of around 800Â 000 people, according to a recent assessment. The government, with help from bilateral partners, has been carrying out relief operations, and plans to expand the number to 534Â 000 this month.
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/ 9 December 2005
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan will send two senior UN officials to Eritrea and Ethiopia to assess the volatile border stand-off following a decision by the Eritrean government to expel personnel from the UN peacekeeping mission there. Annan has asked the head of the UN peacekeeping department, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, to leave as soon as practicable for the Horn of Africa.
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/ 8 December 2005
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The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has asked the public protector to investigate allegations that the media is being used to bring down former deputy president Jacob Zuma. Zuma has also accused the NPA of leaking affidavits to the media.
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/ 8 December 2005
Fitch Ratings has upgraded the national ratings of FirstRand Bank Holdings Limited and its wholly owned subsidiary FirstRand Bank Limited to a long term ‘AA(zaf)’ from ‘AA-(minus)(zaf)’ and ‘AA+(zaf)’ from ‘AA(zaf)’ respectively. The Outlooks remain Stable. All other ratings have been affirmed. A detailed list of ratings is provided at the end of this statement.
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/ 8 December 2005
In a rare concession to critics of the Iraq war, United States President George Bush agreed on Wednesday that ”mistakes have been made” but said US-led reconstruction and security efforts were making solid progress. ”Reconstruction has not always gone as well as we had hoped, primarily because of the security challenges on the ground,” he said.
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/ 8 December 2005
Substantial progress has been achieved in providing microcredit to the world’s poorest families, those earning less than a dollar a day, according to a report released on Wednesday. The Microcredit Summit Campaign said more than 92-million of these families received loans in 2004, nearly a seven-fold hike from the 13,5-million loan recipients in 1997.
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/ 8 December 2005
The former mayor of a Rwandan town pleaded guilty on Wednesday to aiding and abetting the country’s 1994 genocide as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors at a United Nations-backed tribunal, the court said. The 57-year-old pleaded guilty to charges of having ”aided and abetted in the commission of the crimes of murder and extermination” but not guilty to genocide.