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 […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday THE SA Defence Force had prepared a counter-attack force of 50 to 60 tanks, helicopters and jet fighters in case Botswana retaliated during a 1985 raid on African National Congress members in Gaborone, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has heard. The TRC was hearing amnesty applications by the last of […]

THE self-declared Somaliland Republic has pardoned the people jailed for taking part in a recent conference to form a new government in Somalia. At least six people jailed for defying a Somaliland government order to boycott the August conference in neighbouring Djibouti have been freed. Another 51 people, jailed for demonstrating against the arrests, have […]