UGANDA’S top mobile phone operator, MTN, plans to install an optic fibre line in Kampala next month, a move it said would lower telecommunications costs and attract new investment. MTN Uganda Chief Executive Officer Thomas Bragaw said the company would invest $11m over the next 12 months in the project which would initially cover the […]

SOUTH African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel says the country is broadly on track to meet its inflation target. ”Except for the rocketing fuel price … we are on track to meet the inflation target of 2002,” he said. The country’s central bank has set an inflation target of between three and six percent by the […]

THE South African Chamber of Business (Sacob) says its business confidence index (BCI) ebbed slightly in August to 100.1 points from 101 in July, hampered mainly by high oil prices. Sacob called for a renewed focus on exports, blaming the economy’s sluggish performance on poor domestic demand. South Africa’s economy slowed sharply in the first […]

SUDAN’S Constitutional Court has suspended a controversial decree by the Khartoum state governor banning women from working in some public places. ”Women in the private and public sectors should continue to work in their places until a final decision is taken on the case,” the court said. Governor Mazjoub al-Khalifa, citing Islamic sharia law, barred […]

EMELIA SITHOLE, Johannesburg | Saturday A COALITION of South African anti-Aids groups plans legal action to force the government to provide the nevirapine drug – which has been offered to the developing world for free – to prevent expectant mothers passing the virus to their babies. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said its hand had […]

AFP, New York | Sunday PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe said he could have decapitated Ian Smith, the country’s former white prime minister, but that he refrained from doing so because he was not a dictator. “We have not decapitated him … he still has his land, thank God we are a forgiving people. Now, […]

RANGERS from around the world, including 17 African countries, will attend the third world congress of the International Ranger Federation in the Kruger National Park next week. It will be the first time the congress is held in Africa and the aim is to focus attention on wildlife conservation on the continent in particular, as […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Sunday POLICE have made a significant breakthrough in their fight against the wave of terror gripping Cape Town by identifying the latest two urban terror attacks in the city as the work of the same group. The Cape Argus newspaper reported that the same stolen car – a white Citi […]

SHAMILA Batohi, who led the evidence during the King inquiry into cricket match-fixing, has been appointed head of the elite investigating unit, the Scorpions, in KwaZulu-Natal. Batohi is currently the deputy director of public prosecutions in Durban. Batohi succeeds Chris Macadam, who now heads up the human rights unit in national director of prosecutions Bulelani […]