JUDGE Cecil Margo, who presided over two high profile plane crash inquiries, died on Sunday at his Johannesburg home after a long illness. Margo was 85 years old. Margo headed the investigation into the plane crash in October 1986 in which Mozambican president Samora Machel was killed. He also headed the inquiry into the South […]

A BAND of six gunmen sowed terror for half an hour in the Egyptian town of Al-Maragha in raids on two banks that led to the death of 12 people, including three policemen. Another 12 people were injured during the shooting spree, which broke out in the town’s market, where the two banks are located. […]

ILDA JACOBS, Washington | Wednesday AN American iced tea maker was so impressed with South Africa’s rooibos tea that he’s included it in a range of iced teas for the health conscious – and now he’s scouting for disadvantaged communities in South Africa who can provide him with the tea. Seth Goldman’s “Honest Tea” iced […]

MARIAM ISA, Cape Town | Wednesday THE pre-paid sector of the mobile phone market in Africa’s cash-based economies is driving the growth of GSM on the continent, Andrew Mthembu, chairman of the African section of the GSM Alliance said this week. ”Pre-paid is the key to growth in Africa,” he told the opening session of […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Wednesday RAGING flood waters have swept away three people, left more than 3 000 homeless and disrupted end-of-year exams in KwaZulu-Natal as torrential rains lashed the region, officials said. Richard’s Bay town clerk Tonie Heyneke said the three were telecommunications workers who were crossing the bridge over the Mzingazi River in […]

MARIAM ISA, Pretoria | Wednesday SOUTH Africa’s main inflation rates all rose more slowly than expected in October, vindicating the central bank’s decision last week to leave interest rates on hold. But hopes that there would be no need for the central bank to raise rates again in the months ahead were dampened as the […]

REGIONAL mobile operator Orascom Telecom (OT) said this week its African mobile phone operator Telecel had acquired a GSM 900 licence in Niger for $5.8m, to be named Telecel Niger. Telecel has been granted the new licence in Niger for a period of 15 years, renewable every five years. It covers data services and international […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday SOUTH African sugar and aluminium giant Tongaat-Hulett Group Ltd said this week it aimed to generate more than R5bn in annual turnover by 2004 at its Hulett Aluminium plant. Speaking at a ceremony to officially open a R2.4bn expansion of the KwaZulu-Natal province aluminium rolling plant, Peter Straude, the managing […]

ZIMBABWE’S Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) is to appeal against a High Court provisional order allowing squatters to stay on white farms they have invaded since February. High Court judge Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku ruled that war veterans and supporters of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party could remain on the farms pending a Supreme Court ruling […]