ZAMBIA’S only fuel refinery, knocked out of action by a fire 18 months ago, has resumed production. The Italian-built Indeni plant will only manage throughput of around 850000 tonnes of crude oil per year from 1.1m tonnes before the fire, plant officials said. Indeni Managing Director Robert Ottonello and Energy Deputy Minister Celestino Chibamba said […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Tuesday PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe’s government should urgently put in place an austerity programme to boost Zimbabwe’s parlous foreign currency reserves, and reverse economic decline, a business leader said this week. Economic shrinkage is projected at 4.2% this year, Zed Rusike, head of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI), said in a […]

THE Moroccan government has banned three weeklies – Le Journal, Assahifa, and Demain – for “threatening the stability of the state”, Culture and Communications Minister Mohamed Achari announced. Achari told journalists that the three publications “published a very dubious document and commentary pieces that not only touch on a part of our history, but the […]

THE Northern Cape Afrikaner community of Orania has staged a last-ditch bid to secure the town’s independent municipal status ahead of the December 5 local elections without resorting to court action to postpone municipal elections in the area. The community is objecting to its merger with Hopetown and Strydenburg into a single municipality. The Afrikaner […]

SOUTH Africa’s Department of Minerals and Energy says the retail price of petrol will be cut by two cents a litre with effect from December 6. The wholesale price of diesel will drop by 8.8 cents a litre and illuminating paraffin by 0.8 cents a litre. The price reductions, the first since February 2, were […]

THE Department of Public Service and Administration has gone online with its website: www.dpsa.gov.za or www.publicservice.gov.za . The site provides access to public service information, documents, reports, contacts, links, publications and services. Those interested in receiving regular information updates from the DPSA should e-mail Ramafoko with the subject SUBSCRIBE.

GOVERNMENT troops in Guinea Bissau have shot dead rebel General Ansumane Mane, who has been on the run since last week when a military revolt he staged in the capital was put down. Government and military sources said Mane had been killed in Quinhamel, north of the capital Bissau, in a gunfight which also left […]

MORE than 60 Nigerians have died when an explosion ripped through a fractured pipeline at a state-run loading depot outside Lagos, police and witnesses said. Hundreds of people were illegally siphoning off fuel from the pipeline, operated by the state-run oil Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), when the blast occurred, witnesses said. The incident is […]