ZIMBABWES main opposition party, which has fiercely opposed President Robert Mugabe’s land reforms, has given cautious support to the government’s new scheme of resettlement based on commercial operation. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has previously criticised the programme promoted by Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), which involves taking away land mainly from […]

OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Kinshasa | Monday ANGOLA, Namibia and Zimbabwe have called for new peace efforts to end conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo following the slaying of its president Laurent Kabila in what an advisor says was “a premeditated attack”. Presidents Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, Sam Nujoma of Namibia and Robert Mugabe […]

CLAIRE KEETON and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki’s bizarre decision to exclude the country’s leading anti-corruption watchdog from a probe into the states shady R43bn arms deal has raised fresh doubts over his commitment to transparency. Mbeki has come under massive fire from opposition parties, religious groups and a groundswell of public […]

A 77-year-old man who survived having his throat slit is in a critical condition in a Johannesburg hospital. Luis Lopes, his wife Maria Lopes, who is also 77, and their 46-year-old domestic servant were attacked at the Lopes’ Bellevue East, Johannesburg, home on Sunday. Maria Lopes, whose throat was also slit, died. The domestic servant […]

THE earth’s atmosphere is warming faster than expected and evidence is mounting that human activity is responsible, says the United Nations Environment Programme. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) now projects the earth’s average surface temperature will rise 1.4 to 5.8 deg C between 1990 and 2100, higher than its 1995 estimate of […]

ALGERIAN rebels blew up the entrance to a house and machine-gunned to death 11 members of one family, including four women and three children, in a poor suburb of Medea, south of Algiers. The attack came a day after the massacre of 23 shepherds near Chlef, about 220km west of Algiers. More than 60 people […]

SOUTH African media and telecommunications group Johnnic has bought a 40% stake in FirstRand’s eBucks.com’s online customer appreciation project for R40m. The transaction is part of a deal to create a joint customer appreciation programme with a base of more than seven million clients. Johnnic says it will merge the customer loyalty schemes of its […]

EMELIA SITHOLE, Johannesburg | Friday STRONG local and offshore demand for South African blue-chip issues lifted the Johannesburg bourse to its highest close in more than 11 months on Thursday and dealers see the market staying strong on Friday. However, Northam Platinum went against the strong tone, falling sharply after it launched a bid for […]

NIGERIA’S state carrier has agreed another four-month extension of its current joint venture accord with British Airways for the operation of the Lagos-London route. The debt-ridden Nigeria Airways sought the help of British Airways (BA) to run the route, but the agreement expired last October and had been extended for three months. Uncertainties have dogged […]

THE South African Revenue Service (SARS) and the country’s largest electronic goods retailer and furniture group, Profurn Ltd, have agreed that the group will pay R26m to settle a tax dispute. Profurn’s chief financial officer said the group had expected to pay ”much less”. The settlement arises from a meeting last year which SARS held […]