ASHTON Mining Ltd shares are struggling to top the A$1.62 a share bid from De Beers as traders bet that a rival offer is unlikely to emerge. The shares touched A$1.64 briefly after the bid was announced at the beginning of the week, but have only peaked at A$1.62 in the two trading days since […]

THE RAND is trading weaker as investors focus on the devaluation of the Zimbabwean dollar and a nationwide strike in that country today. The unit weakened to R7.02 to the US dollar overnight on news that the Zimbabwean government had devalued the local dollar by 24 percent and is hovering around that mark today. ”Official […]

THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund said it will lend Tanzania $26m under an existing lending programme and praised the east African country for curbing inflation and pursuing economic reforms. The international lending agency said its loan to Tanzania meant the country had now borrowed $53m under the three-year lending scheme. Implementation of its macroeconomic programme resulted […]

DIMENSION Data (Didata) spent the first 200m portion of the funds it raised in its London listing last month when it bought the remaining stake in the British-based network integration services firm, Chernikeeff Networks. Didata bought the 50.01 percent it did not already own in Chernikeeff from founder Peter Harrison, who will stay on at […]

TRADE unions and labour research analysts have rejected the results of the latest Statistics South Africa annual survey, which reported that the unemployment rate had fallen by 1.9 percent. Claire Horton, a senior economic researcher at the National Labour and Economic Development Institute said that the results were unreliable as current definitions of unemployment were […]

UNITED Nations Secretary- General Kofi Annan has been decorated with Ghana’s highest honour, Companion of the Order of the Star of Ghana, while on an official visit to his West African homeland. Speaking at a state banquet for the occasion, President Jerry Rawlings described Annan, the first UN secretary-general from sub-Saharan Africa, as a man […]

THREE alleged Rastafarians are scheduled to appear in the Warmbaths Magistrate’s Court on Thursday in connection with keeping nine children in an old mineshaft. The five girls and four boys, aged between five and 13, were rescued on Friday after police responded to a complaint that there were trespassers at the old Zwartlkloof mine, 10km […]

POLICE are investigating the involvement of more South African celebrities in an international child porn syndicate. The revelation comes a day after freelance journalist Tasco Luc de Reuck, 27, and film critic Leon van Nierop, 47, were each granted bail of R5_ 000 in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court after the Pretoria child protection unit allegedly […]