SUDANESE government bombs killed 18 civilians in southern Sudan on Monday, according to joint charges by rebels, aid workers and a visiting senior US official. Susan Rice, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, lambasted the Khartoum regime after a two day “humanitarian assessment” visit to the south. Echoing a statement released by rebel […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday SOUTH African police announced the arrest on Monday of the owner and the manager of a factory in which 11 workers burnt to death three days ago after being locked in. The workers were killed late Friday when a fire raged through the ESS Chemicals factory near Johannesburg. A senior […]

BRIAN LIGOMEKA, Blantyre | Tuesday ALMOST six percent of Malawi’s population, or 600000 people, are beggars and rely on handouts to survive, a report claimed this week. Malawi’s Council for the Handicap (MACOHA) said in a statement the beggars were largely handicapped or homeless villagers who had been forced into the country’s cities and towns […]

SOUTH Africa’s African Bank Investment Ltd (Abil), one of the country’s four main microlenders, has unveiled a 26% rise in annual earnings per share and expects returns to rise this year. The group said that its headline earnings per share jumped to 121.9 cents from 96.7 cents in the year to September 30 – which […]

LONDON-listed mining giant Anglo American Plc is preparing to launch a $1.3bn bid for Caemi of Brazil, one of the world’s last independent iron ore mining groups, London’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported. Anglo will be opposed by Brazil’s CVRD, the world’s largest iron ore producer, while Rio Tinto and Billiton, Australia’s Broken Hill Proprietary Co […]

ANGOLA’S UNITA rebels lack the capacity to threaten the government in Luanda despite an increase in guerrilla activity, the country’s army chief said in a radio interview. ”Contrary to what may be thought, these guerrillas are not increasing their actions, but decreasing them,” General Joao Batista de Matos told state-owned Radio Nacional. The rebel group […]

RATING agency Duff & Phelps has upgraded the long-term domestic rating of South African transport and services group Imperial Holdings to AA- from A+. It said the upgrade followed the group’s success in increasing margins on traditional business, by adding a higher margin component to its existing customer relationship. – Reuters

IVORY Coast’s ousted army ruler Robert Guei could face charges linked to the killing of dozens of protesters after he tried to rig a presidential poll, the country’s defence minister said this week. Moise Lida Kouassi told reporters a meeting between Guei and President Laurent Gbagbo last week did not imply that Guei would not […]

ANGLO-South African insurance group Old Mutual Plc is to restructure the revenues of its US operations, which it will finance through a share placing to raise $220m. The restructuring follows the completion in September of its purchase of US fund management group United Asset Management Corp (UAM). Old Mutual said it was to restructure the […]

TWO rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, normally loose allies in a war against President Laurent Kabila, turned their guns on each other over the weekend in a remote northern town. Rebel officials said troops from the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) and the Ugandan-backed Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) briefly exchanged […]