SUSPENDED Mpumalanga Parks Board (MPB) chief Alan Gray has won yet another reprieve when a disciplinary hearing scheduled for this week was postponed to November 1. Gray was suspended in September 1998 for his role in the illegal use of 31 game reserves as collateral for a series of dodgy promissory notes worth over R1,3bn. […]

EMMANUAL GIROUD, Dar Es Salaam | Thursday A DECADE of liberalisation has earned Tanzania, which goes to the polls this weekend, a reputation as a star pupil of the International Monetary Fund, yet its people remain among the poorest in the world. Annual per capita income hovers between $200 and $250. More than half the […]

AFP and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Ivory Coast | Thursday IVORY Coast socialist leader Laurent Gbagbo, who has claimed power after junta leader Robert Guei fled the country, faces immediate calls for a new election from rival candidates barred from the ballot papers. While the official results from Sunday’s presidential race have yet to be announced, Gbagbo […]

SA construction group Aveng Ltd has won High Court approval to purchase rival construction and engineering firm LTA in a deal worth up to R1.4bn. The deal, which effectively moulds Aveng into Africa’s biggest listed diversified construction and engineering firm, entails an offer of R46 in cash for each ordinary LTA share. LTA shareholders can […]

LABOUR federation Cosatu is concerned that simmering tension in Swaziland could spark a refugee crisis for the southern African region. It plans to hold a three-day meeting next month with its Swazi counterparts to draw up a programme of action to demand reforms in the landlocked kingdom. Swaziland has recently been hit by a series […]

SA financial services group Decillion Ltd has opened a grain trading and hedging business to serve millers and other end users of grain. The initiative will be driven by Decillion Agri Services (DAS), which has been servicing the financial risk management needs of the agricultural sector since May 1999. ”Several of the smaller cooperatives have […]

SOUTH African retail group Edgars Consolidated Stores Ltd (Edcon) has divided its six-store retail chain into two distinct retail groups, one serving as a discount-speciality division known as United Retail, and the other one serving as a departmental brand store named Edgars. ”In certain towns various chain brands will be housed together in one store,” […]

THE Nigerian Senate will this week consider a five-pronged set of measures aimed at ending the perennial fuel shortages in the oil producing nation, including a review of some ongoing turnaround maintenance contracts for the four state-owned refineries. The measures also include the drawing up of a new plan for scheduled maintenance of the facilities […]

WHITE South Africans should not apologise about the injustices suffered by black people in the apartheid era if they were going to do so grudgingly, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said this week. Speaking during the Johannesburg launch of the paperback version of his book ”No Future Without Forgiveness,” the former Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) chairman […]

MOST of Nigeria, including the commercial hub of Lagos, is without electricity following the collapse of the West African nation’s creaking electricity network system, power officials said. It is the fourth time this year that Nigeria’s electricity network has broken down. The power outage has further compounded Nigeria’s energy crisis, following shortages of refined petroleum […]