THE European Union has awarded Zambia a $26m loan facility to help small and medium scale miners, Zambian Finance Minister Katele Kalumba said this week. The loan facility, to be managed by the European Investment Bank, will be available to five Zambian banks and leasing companies, Kalumba said after signing the agreement with the European […]

REUTERS, Johannesburg | Monday THE Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) is considering demutualising as part of a major restructuring exercise to boost liquidity and improve the market’s efficiency. The JSE is the world’s 19th largest exchange, with market capitalisation of some $250bn, but it ranks 34th in liquidity terms. It will now implement further measures from […]

All the people aboard a Saudi plane hijacked to Baghdad were freed on the weekend and the hijackers taken away by Iraqi authorities. The passengers and crew streamed off the Saudi Arabian Airlines plane, hijacked on a Jeddah-London flight, a little over three hours after they landed at Baghdad’s Saddam International Airport. The four hijackers, […]

A NEWSPAPER founded just under a century ago by Mahatma Gandhi in Durban and dormant for 40 years has been relaunched. Gandhi established the “Indian Opinion” in 1903, using it to highlight the injustices of colonialism and white domination and promote his principles of non-violence, truth and welfare for all. Now called “Opinion,” the non-profit […]

ANNA BORZELLO and VINCENT MAYANJA, Kampala | Monday HEALTH authorities in northern Uganda are fighting frantically to curb the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, which has killed at least 33 people in a densely populated town of Gulu, but the government says there is “no cause for alarm.” In the past, outbreaks have hit […]

ANGOLA will sell 49% of its shares in the commerical branch of the national oil company Sonangol – the first time private investors are allowed to buy shares in Sonangol, which has been entirely state-owned since the company was created in 1976. Sonangol coordinates oil exploration and drilling by foreign companies within Angola, and its […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Monday THE former editor of Zimbabwe’s main state-controlled newspaper has admitted he suppressed stories that showed President Robert Mugabe’s government in a bad light in the run-up to parliamentary elections in June. “We went out of our way and abandoned all professional ethics as you know them,” former editor of the […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Monday AGGRIEVED staff at the KwaZulu-Natal Education and Culture department are to confront their MEC, Faith Gasa, after she branded them a “bunch of reptiles” and threatened to fire them for their part in an evil spell that her predecessor is alleged to have put on her. The nervous MEC is […]

SOUTH African mining group Anglovaal Mining Ltd’s (Avmin) controlling shareholders and other investors are pooling their resources to maintain long-term control over the group under the control of the Menell family. ”It is Arctic’s intention to acquire additional ordinary shares in Avmin to establish a measure of sustainable long-term control,” the group said. Avmin has […]

NICHOLAS PHYTHIAN, Abidjan | Monday A GROUP of Ivorian parties, labour unions and other groups has called for a worker stayaway in protest against what it says will be a sham presidential election on October 22. A representative of the Forum grouping that called the ‘dead town’ protest said it aimed to bring economic life […]