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The prime interest rate is to drop to 11% after the Reserve Bank opted on Thursday to lower the repo rate, at which it lends money to commercial banks, to 7,5%. The decision, which caught the market by surprise, was prompted by an improved inflation outlook says Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni.
The information, communication and technology empowerment charter is to come into effect in March next year, the ICT empowerment working group said on Thursday. Chairperson Dali Mpofu told reporters in Johannesburg the fourth and final draft of the charter would be released on August 23.
The Medicines Control Council has declared a generic version of anti-retroviral Duovir ”undesirable” and ordered a recall, the manufacturer confirmed on Thursday. A notice in the government gazette of August 6 advises that patients using the drug consult their doctors for equivalent or alternative treatment.
Government-backed militias in Sudan are still attacking civilians and are ”routinely” raping women and girls in the Darfur region of the country, human rights groups said on Wednesday. The studies by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch came as Sudan was under growing international pressure to rein in the marauding Arab militias, known as Janjaweed.
Nigeria warned Sudan on Thursday that if it does not allow African Union peacekeepers and diplomats to resolve the Darfur crisis it will end up facing less friendly pressure from outside the continent. ”What has to be made clear is that if Sudan will not yield to gentle and African pressure it will have to succumb to extra-African pressure that might not be so gentle,” said Remi Oyo, spokesperson for President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Atrocities ‘continue in Darfur’
Trade unions will persist with setting up a commission of inquiry into retrenchments at Telkom, although the company has refused to take part in the process. In a statement on Thursday, the Solidarity union spokesperson Dirk Herman said the unions were disappointed at Telkom’s refusal to participate.
The Eastern Cape government needs more than R150-million over the next three years to address some of the problems it faced before 2002, an interim report said on Wednesday. The report states that the education department needed more than R37-million, social development over R93-million and roads and public works was short of more than R20-million.
The prospect that a tropical storm and a hurricane — or possibly two hurricanes — could strike Florida on the same day is something meteorologists say they have never seen. ”It’s almost unheard of,” state meteorologist Ben Nelson said. Disaster officials are keeping an eye on Tropical Storm Bonnie and Hurricane Charley.