Beers is aiming to increase its core earnings by 30% to -billion by stimulating demand and pushing up prices, reports the Antwerp Diamond High Council, in its Antwerp Facets magazine. It also aims to raise the value of the group to -billion by 2009. While it did not disclose current value, it provided a figure of ,3-billion when the firm was taken into private hands four years ago.
Botswana’s police commissioner said on Tuesday that officers had fired rubber bullets to disperse a group of about 35 Bushmen protesting their eviction from ancestral lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The Basarwa tribesmen had been trying to break through blockades and enter the reserve on Saturday, police commissioner Edwin Batshu said.
Calm returned to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday after deadly internecine clashes and police protests over dire insecurity problems, as Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian mother of five in the West Bank. ”Things are calm and we hope that everyone will respect the law and public order,” said interior ministry spokesperson Tawfiq Abu Khossa.
A new war of words erupted between the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) on Tuesday sparked by the recent establishment of the National Democratic Convention (Nadeco). The ANC rejected as ”preposterous” an assertion by IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi that the ruling party was behind the birth of the new party.
The closure of the Pretoria suburb where President Thabo Mbeki and Cabinet ministers live has nothing to do with the Presidency. The municipality said on Tuesday: ”The closure and rezoning of streets in Bryntirion has nothing to do with the erection of booms, as reported in some sections of the media.”
Iran is finalising a new contract with South African firm Mobile Telephones Network (MTN) after throwing Turkish company Turkcell out of a venture to set up the Islamic republic’s second cellphone network. Ebrahim Mahmoudzadeh, the head of the Irancell consortium set up to manage the multibillion-dollar project, said MTN had deposited the â,¬290-million licence fee required to take the 49% stake originally awarded to Turkcell.
Does South Africa really need nuclear power to meet its energy needs? David Fig’s short book, <i>Questioning South Africa’s Nuclear Direction </i> is a systematic plea against the extension of nuclear energy in South Africa. Anthony Egan reports.
Israeli Jew Susan Nathan’s decision to move into an Israeli Arab village in 2002 – and to write about it – might be considered a revolutionary act and it was certainly a radical step, writes Anthony Egan.
<b>CD OF THE WEEK:</b> Few bands come with such a sterling reputation for emotive music as that of the Dave Matthews Band, so there are always high expectations of any of this award-winning and often-touring group’s new albums, writes Riaan Wolmarans.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned on Tuesday that Zimbabwe’s economy is in a state of virtual collapse with growth contracting, inflation rampant and poverty soaring. In an annual report issued after Zimbabwe won a six-month reprieve from the threat of expulsion from the IMF, directors expressed ”deep concern” at the economic situation under President Robert Mugabe.