A JOINT World Bank and International Monetary Fund mission arrived in Ethiopia this week to discuss a new plan to reduce poverty with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s government. Meles last week said he wanted the aid unblocked after donors suspended development aid worth over $1bn in Ethiopia in 1998 following the outbreak of war with […]

STEVEN SWINDELLS, Johannesburg | Tuesday THE unexpected announcement by South Africa’s Reserve Bank that it plans to increase domestic interest rates by 25 basis points at its daily repurchase tender has failed to stop the currency’s woes, sending government bond yields higher and trimming gains on the stock market. South Africa’s beleaguered rand traded at […]

ELLIS MNYANDU AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday ANALYSTS have raised the spectre of a gloomy Christmas for South African consumers and retailers if commercial banks raise their prime lending rates in tandem with the Reserve Bank’s repo rate hike. Evan Walker, a retail sector analyst at Standard Equities, said many retailers would take a […]

ANGLO American Platinum (Angloplat) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) have agreed to a 9% wage increase in a deal that ends a crippling four-week strike. Angloplat’s Mike Mtakati said the agreement is for a period of two years, and negotiations for a raise on the provident fund contribution had been referred to a […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Bloemfontein | Tuesday THE world is failing to feed those who need it most, with some 80 million children dying worldwide every year through malnutrition, says the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). And while the potential exists to produce enough food for everyone in the world, about 20% of people in […]

Gavin Pattison, Gulu, Uganda | Tuesday HEALTH officials in northern Uganda say they will use force if necessary to impose a quarantine on three districts at the centre of an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus – an incurable viral disease which liquefies victims’ internal organs and leads to death by bleeding in up to […]

THE water requirements of a rare, inch-long toad native to Tanzania’s southern highlands have prevented a hydro-electric plant in the area operating at full capacity, a local newspaper reported. The habitat of the Kihansi Spray Toad needs as much water, about seven cubic metres per second, as is used to generate 52 megawatts of electricity. […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Monday MASSIVE price increases of between 20 and 30% will price medical aids completely out of the market, spelling the end of private sector healthcare and ushering in a national health system which the already cash-strapped government would be hard pressed to implement, experts have warned. Jerry Bryant, the general manager […]

RAMPAGING herds of hippopotami have been spreading terror among farmers and fishermen along the river Niger, local authorities in the west African country of the same name said this week. The giant mammals, which can weigh up to four tonnes, have been attacking boatmen and impeding rice harvesting. Two hippos who were found to have […]