EMSIE FERREIRA AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Saturday THE leader of the Muslim vigilante group Pagad has been charged with terrorism for allegedly orchestrating a spate of bombings in outlying areas of Cape Town in 1997 and 1998. State prosecutor Willie Viljoen said Abdus-Salaam Ebrahim stands accused of ordering fellow members of Pagad to […]
AFP, Geneva | Saturday THE war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is heading for a humanitarian catastrophe, the World Food Program (WFP) has warned. Some 16 million people, or about one-third of the population, do not have enough to eat. “Thousands of lives are at stake,” said WFP’s Geneva spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume, adding that humanitarian […]
JEREMY LOVELL, Cape Town | Friday A CONFIDENTIAL defence department report has painted a grim picture of decrepit machinery and shortages of ammunition and fuel in South Africa’s armed forces – even as the country sets out to spend R30bn rand on ships and aircraft from Europe. The report says a lack of funds means […]
SOUTH African information technology group Dimension Data’s US division has entered a deal to deliver fully managed Web hosting to businesses in the northeast of the United States jointly with BandwidthCenter. BandwidthCenter Strategic Planning Vice President Pamela Mercanti said the deal was worth around $250m to Didata over the next 18 months. She said this […]
GOLD Fields chairman and chief executive Chris Thompson is to meet with the South African government in a bid to resurrect the failed merger with Canada’s Franco-Nevada Mining Corp. Gold Fields and Canada’s Franco-Nevada stunned the mining world in June when they unveiled a $3.7bn all-stock deal to create the world’s third-largest gold producer with […]
PROSPECTOR Mount Grace Resources NL has agreed with South Africa’s Mintek to build a pilot plant for producing magnesium in Australia’s Northern Territory. Mount Grace is to pay Mintek, South Africa’s government-backed minerals research group, up to A$2m to help fund construction of a 1.5 megawatt plant and for a licence to use Mintek’s continuous […]
THE man in charge of organising all-party talks in war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo, former Botswanan president Sir Ketumile Masire, has expressed increasing pessimism about his chances of success, saying the international community was not doing enough to support him. Congolese President Laurent Kabila refuses to work with Masire, who is now looking for […]
Andy Colquhoun Harry Viljoen is set to irrevocably change the face of South African rugby when he becomes Springbok coach in Cape Town today. Viljoen is likely to announce that he will be taking 10 black players in the 40-strong Springbok squad for the four-Test end-of- season tour to Argentina, Ireland, Wales and England. And […]
David Le Page african frontiers It’s all about detective work, says one of the astronomers involved in the building of the Southern African Large Telescope (Salt). As they labour on a Karoo mountain top building Salt over the next five years, South Africa’s intergalactic Hercule Poirots know they are essentially building a great big magnifying […]
Jaspreet Kindra A deal to allow traditional authorities to function as parallel local councils was being hammered out this week in an effort to break the deadlock between traditional leaders and the government threatening to postpone the local government elections. The discussion of the plan suggests the African National Congress has backed down from its […]