At least two Cabinet ministers in Zimbabwe are suspected of passing official secrets to Western intelligence agencies seeking to spy on President Robert Mugabe’s government, the state <i>Sunday Mail</i> reported. Several officials are believed to have divulged confidential information to "hostile intelligence agencies".
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Africa&ao=177308">Zim ruling party shuns big names</a>
About 1,8-million survivors, mainly in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, are in need of food, says the United Nations. Help is likely to reach those in Sri Lanka within three days but an estimated one-million Indonesians may have to wait much longer, warn officials.
The star witness against the son of the former British prime minister, Mark Thatcher, has revealed the most detailed allegations yet of his role in a West African coup attempt, including claims that he helped test a helicopter for the operation. Coup pilot Crause Steyl has testified about a string of meetings involving Thatcher as an ”investor”.
The US is preparing to hold terrorism suspects indefinitely without trial, replacing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp with permanent prisons in the Cuban enclave. The new prisons are intended for captives the Pentagon and the CIA suspect of terrorist links but do not wish to set free or put on trial for lack of evidence.
The United Nations on Sunday warned that huge promises of aid from rich countries to the Asia tsunami crisis might not be fulfilled as some countries use dubious methods to appear more generous than they really are.
In his New Year’s message, President Thabo Mbeki has taken note of South Africa’s good economic performance in the past year and says the country has established itself "as one of the best-performing economies in the world". "We are therefore well set to achieve new successes in the new year," he said.
The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) opened marginally firmer on Monday when a weaker rand buoyed by heavyweight resources stocks. However, with many players still on holiday, volumes were extremely thin. By 9.18am, the all-share index was up 0,16%. Resources rallied 0,7% and the gold-mining index gained 0,35%.
The South African rand was weaker against the dollar in early trade on Monday on the back of the latter’s recovery against major currencies. Currency traders said that the rand could post more losses and that it is likely to look to the euro for direction. At 8.36am, the rand was quoted at R5,6951 per dollar.
World number four gold miner Gold Fields on Friday announced that it has purchased, through its indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary Orogen Holdings, 5,2-million common shares in Comaplex Minerals. The shares have been acquired for investment purposes.
The dispute between the Pharmaceutical Society and the Minister of Health began as an urgent application for a declaration of invalidity of regulations relating to a transparent pricing system for medicines, which in the minister’s view would reduce costs to patients. We look at the disturbing unfolding of events.