EMSIE FERREIRA, Cape Town | Tuesday SOUTH Africa has promulgated emergency regulations to curb linefishing because stocks of some of the most popular species have sunk so low that they are unlikely to recover without a complete ban. Conservationists are also battling to save South Africa’s unique abalone shellfish species following close to a decade […]

EMELIA SITHOLE, Johannesburg | Tuesday SYNTHETIC fuel producer Sasol said this week it was buying German RWE AG’s Condea speciality chemicals unit for 1.3bn euros ($1.16bn) in a deal launching the South African group in Europe. The acquisition, which Sasol clinched ahead of US private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Bain Capital, would dilute […]

SOUTH African software group Softline Ltd said it had strengthened its presence in the US accounting software market through an $8.5m acquisition of AccountMate Software Corporation. Based in San Francisco, California, AccountMate is an established player in the midrange accounting software market with more than 15000 registered users and 120000 installations since it was founded […]

CELLULAR telephone operator Vodacom Tanzania said its connection targets set in 1999 were about to be overtaken and it expected to have 200 000 customers by the end of 2002. Vodacom Tanzania said it has connected 50 000 customers in its first four months of commercial operations, against a 1999 projection of 100 000 customers […]

SOUTH Africa’s ruling ANC won 59% percent of the popular vote in last week’s municipal elections, with the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) taking an unexpectedly high 22%, according to the final tally. The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said the Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) won 9.14% of the vote. The IEC said that the ANC […]

BRITISH retailer Sainsbury’s, which opened its first supermarkets in Egypt last January, has decided to pull out of the Egyptian market and sell its shares to an Egyptian investor. Sainsbury’s-Egypt opened 114 chains in a year in the Greater Cairo area. Shortly after the Palestinian uprising erupted in late September, Egyptian students demonstrating against Israel […]

TORTURE is rife in South Africa’s police service and in its military prisons, according to claims by human rights watchdog Amnesty International. Torture included electric shocks, suffocation, forced painful postures, suspension from moving vehicles and helicopters and severe and prolonged beatings, the organisation told The Star newspaper. Police chief Jackie Selebi denied the claims. Amnesty […]

THE United Cricket Board (UCB) will go to court to defend its life ban against disgraced former captain Hansie Cronje, who has filed an interdict against the punishment. Cronje, who has admitted to taking money from bookmakers, first threatened legal action when the UCB general council took a resolution to ban him for life in […]

ED STODDARD, Johannesburg | Monday DELEGATES from more than 120 countries have signed a treaty declaring war on some of the world’s most dangerous organic pollutants – with an exemption for DDT, which South Africa and other countries need to fight the lethal mosquito-borne disease malaria. The talks, held under the auspices of UNEP, were […]