United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan appealed on Monday for a green revolution in Africa, telling a conference in Addis Ababa that ending the continent’s chronic hunger crisis was possible given the right strategies and political will. Nearly a third of all men, women and children in sub-Saharan Africa are severely malnourished.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s appeal against her fraud and theft conviction was partly upheld in the Pretoria High Court on Monday, and her four-year sentence replaced with a wholly suspended one. Judge Eberhardt Bertelsmann dismissed 25 theft charges against the former African National Congress Women’s League president, but upheld 43 of fraud.
Here’s an interesting scenario. Imagine that someone arrived at your farm one day and suddenly declared it to be someone else’s farm. "Colonialism," you’d say. Let it ride. This kind of thing is happening all the time. What can you do about it, anyway? What can anyone ever do about colonial conquest? Shit happens.
The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) was marginally stronger in noon trade on Monday, lifted by heavyweight resources stocks that were up offshore. However, the low volumes were the morning’s most noticeable feature and with United States markets closed, were likely to remain so.
A member of listed financial services group Alexander Forbes, Lane Clark & Peacock LLP, has acquired Libera AG, Switzerland’s largest independent employee benefits consulting business, from Ernst & Young for a consideration of approximately 20-million Swiss francs (R98-million).
South African electronics company Reunert’s wholly-owned subsidiary Saco Systems has concluded a deal with British company Intellident to promote and deliver the latest technology in "smart label" RFID library solutions for the Southern Africa market, Reunert announced on Monday.
South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma has urged the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) to exercise strong oversight of local governments to improve service delivery as a matter of national importance. He was speaking at an NCOP workshop in Cape Town on Monday focusing on challenges facing the council.
The Scorpions have refuted a Sunday newspaper report claiming the elite investigating unit was probing three government ministers and a provincial premier for fraud. The report said the Scorpions were probing the four for fraud and corruption relating to travel vouchers.
Solidarity and the National Union of Mineworkers on Friday handed over a memorandum to Anglo Platinum management at its base metals refinery in Rustenburg. AngloPlat ignored an agreement that was signed with the unions earlier this year and decided to implement a bonus of 18% instead of the agreed upon 30%, Solidarity said.
Hundreds of thousands of Rwandans accused of participating in the 1994 genocide are due to face justice for the first time under a controversial system of village courts which start hearing cases this month. Virtually the entire population will be involved in the trials, which dispense with lawyers and rely on the community to act as witness, advocate and judge of one of the 20th century’s greatest crimes.