A Dedicated Banks Bill will be submitted to the South African Parliament in October this year and details of its contents will be released then, says South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. In June, Manuel said new laws would be on the table to create the second tier of commercial banks better equipped to serve millions of South Africans who were largely overlooked by large commercial banks.
The ”sick” people responsible for the death of 21-year-old Leigh Matthews must be tracked down, and nobody can be silent, said African National Congress spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama on Thursday. ”It is very sad and distressing, and it is unbelievable that people can do something like this,” said Ngonyama.
Leigh Matthews is dead
South Africa’s Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin has dismissed speculation that negotiations between South African Airways (SAA) and Nigeria have reached a deadlock. SAA has an ambitious plan of creating a networking hub in Nigeria by acquiring a 30% stake in the country’s newest airline.
Angry Sierra Leoneans are demanding that their government ask Guinea to withdraw its troops from their territory, which they occupied five years ago. Troops from Guinea occupied the eastern border town of Yenga during Sierra Leone’s civil war between the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front and government forces.
The enduring mystery surrounding the demise of Napoleon Bonaparte has just been given another twist. The official verdict, supported by an autopsy, was that l’Empereur died of stomach cancer on May 5, 1821, at the age of 51, while in exile on Britain’s South Atlantic island colony of St Helena.
Israel on Wednesday accused the European Union of ”encouraging Palestinian terrorism” by supporting a United Nations general assembly resolution pressing the Jewish state to obey a world court ruling and tear down the ”anti-terror” barrier under construction through the West Bank.
The South African music industry should test the limits of the international market place, delegates at the first industry conference were told in Johannesburg on Wednesday. The challenge was to transform the national industry into a trans-national one, said Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan at the opening of the three-day Moshito 04 conference in Sandton.
Portugal’s third-biggest private bank, BPI, said on Wednesday it plans to open 20 new branches in war-ravaged Angola by April 2005 because of the oil-rich African country’s good growth prospects. BPI chairperson Fernando Ulrich told a news conference the former Portuguese colony had great potential and was a ”very strong bet” for the bank.
The Cabinet agreed on Wednesday to institute an investigation into foreign land ownership in South Africa and how it impacted on land reforms. Government spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe said in Pretoria that the audit would be run by the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs.
The United States missed 10 opportunities to detect and disrupt the al-Qaeda September 11 conspiracy before the attacks took place, a report by an official commission of inquiry is expected to claim on Thursday. However, the September 11 commission report will stop short of ruling whether the hijackings should have been prevented, a critical issue in the heat of a presidential election campaign.