JEREMY LOVELL, Cape Town | Tuesday THE world’s biggest floating diamond processing vessel will set sail for the first time within three weeks and should be in position off Namibia before Christmas, the Namibian Minerals Corporation (NAMCO) said this week. NAMCO chairman Alastair Holberton told reporters he expected the vessel would harvest 200000 carats of […]

ANGOLA’S oil minister Jose Maria Botelho Vasconcelos said international oil firms developing huge fields offshore from the southern African country may have to negotiate new terms on future field developments. International oil firms have discovered more than seven billion barrels of oil in deep water off Angola’s Atlantic seaboard but the impoverished war-torn country’s share […]

ALLAN SECCOMBE, Johannesburg | Tuesday SOUTH Africa’s mining industry is haemorrhaging skilled workers and squandering opportunities to tap into the mineral wealth of its neighbours, says Gold Fields chief executive Chris Thompson. Thompson, who is also chairman of Gold Fields Ltd, South Africa’s second largest bullion producer, said there were a number of measures the […]

CANADIAN liquor giant Seagram has lost its legal bid to prevent a merger between Stellenbosch Farmers Winery Group (SFW) and drinks-maker Distillers. Seagram made the application in Cape Town’s High Court on November 15, two days after SFW and Distillers sealed a merger that industry analysts said would hit Seagram’s market share. Between them SFW […]

A 35-year-old man was beaten to death with bricks in Port Elizabeth in what appears to have been a case of mob justice, SABC radio news reported. The victim had allegedly attempted to rape a five-year-old girl. A witness to the victim’s crime allegedly called on other members of the community, who then proceeded with […]

CELLULAR operator MTN has denied that it was guilty of overcharging subscribers, maladministration and fraudulent sales. The denial comes after a report in the Mail & Guardian last week, which appeared to plough through letters and papers relating to insurance and tax issues, Business Report said. A representative of the South African Revenue Service (Sars) […]

ADE OBISESAN, Lagos | Monday NIGERIANS are eagerly awaiting promised revelations this week about the circumstances surrounding the 1998 death of detained millionaire politician Moshood Abiola. Major Hamza al-Mustapha, a close security aide to the late dictator Sani Abacha, last week told a government panel which is hearing allegations of human rights violations that he […]

THE National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa has rejected what it calls a “miserable” and “meagre” offer by the retail motor industry of a three percent wage increase for petrol attendants. The offer was the employers’ attempt to avert a looming strike during peak season, Numsa spokesman Hosea Morapedi said. Numsa is demanding a […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday LOCAL pension funds are repatriating surpluses of R80bn to employers while they grant pensioners increases of only 1%, according to the authoritative British actuarial association magazine, The Actuary. Beeld newspaper reports that Roger Wellsted, the South African consultant who wrote the article, claims that many South African pensioners had to […]