South African stocks delivered mixed performances on Wednesday morning, leaving the JSE Securities Exchange South Africa (JSE) level overall. Gold stocks were a feature on the downside, but a weaker rand pared losses. The rand was quoted at R6,54 per dollar from R6,48 when the JSE closed on Tuesday.
The latest atrocity in Afghanistan — a dozen children killed by a ”bicycle bomb” in Kandahar on Tuesday — is a reminder that Iraq is not the only place where US-sponsored regime change has not produced peace. Defeating insurgencies cannot be done by the iron fist alone.
Indonesia said on Wednesday its shared colonial past with Zimbabwe meant it could ”understand” that country’s controversial programme of seizing white-owned farms and giving them to blacks. ”As a country that has also experienced land reform and a colonial past, we understand,” said Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda.
South Africa’s Competition Commission has found, following an investigation, no evidence of excessive steel pricing by steel group Iscor, commission spokesperson Karin Coode said on Wednesday. The investigation followed complaints by South African gold miners Harmony Gold and Durban Roodepoort Deep and others.
Three miners died and five were injured after a rockburst at an AngloGold mine near Carletonville on Tuesday, AngloGold reported on Wednesday. The rockburst occurred about 3 500 metres below the surface, and was caused by seismic activity, measuring 2,2 on the Richter scale, spokesperson Shelagh Blackman said.
Hefer and his commission now seem like history. However, amid the dust whirling in his wake, the controversy of confidential briefings remains to be resolved.
In the interim, everyone associated with ”off-the-record” media dealings is treading on tiptoes.
The next presidential election in Nigeria is not due until May 2007. While that might seem a long way off to some, aspirant contenders have already emerged -– and they include the man who plunged Nigeria into a political crisis in 1993: former military ruler Ibrahim Babangida.
The JSE Securities Exchange South Africa drifted weaker at the start on Wednesday, with a slightly stronger currency hurting heavyweight rand hedge stocks. Early volumes were once again fairly light, with less than R20-million worth of shares changing hands in the first 20 minutes of trade.
A British clipper ship hauls bales of opium to emaciated Chinese addicts as sailors belt out rollicking sea shanties. ”What a wonderful world,” croons Louis Armstrong among stark images of movie stars, musicians and other celebrities cut down by drugs in the prime of life.
Haggai Matar never expected that his sentence would be so harsh. But as the teenage refusenik reports to a military prison on Wednesday, he says he will draw comfort from the judges’ description of him as a threat to the survival of Israel. Matar is one of five young men starting one-year sentences at a prison near Haifa.