OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Sunday 7.00pm. TRADE and Industry Minister Alec Erwin said on Sunday negotiations to create a regional free trade deal in Southern Africa are progressing but cautioned that difficulties still lay ahead. Erwin addressed the ninth annual Southern African economic summit in Durban this weekend following a meeting with Zimbabwean trade minister […]

SOUTH African Airways has announced a code-share partnership with Varig (Viacao Aerea Riograndense) and with Aerolineas Argentinas, ensuring that it will double its frequency between South America and South Africa from two flights to four a week. Effective from Thursday, the airline will fly every Sunday and Thursday non-stop between Johannesburg and Sao Paulo. On […]

THE United States has ruled out the lifting of UN sanctions against Libya, which were suspended in April, because Tripoli has “failed to fully cooperate with Lockerbie trial proceedings,” US ambassador Peter Burleigh said in Washington on Thursday. Burleigh said “there are outstanding requests from the Scottish prosecutors which are very specific requests for Libyan […]

Guinea has filed an application at the International Court of Justice for permission to intervene in the land and maritime boundary dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon, presently before that court. A statement by the court on Wednesday said Equitorial Guinea stated that the purpose of the application to intervene “is to protect [its] legal rights […]

GHANA, whose biggest export is cocoa, on Thursday denounced a proposed European Union directive that would allow chocolate makers to put less cocoa butter in their products and still call it chocolate. The text, once adopted, would allow chocolate with added vegetable fats. The fats would replace cocoa butter up to a limit of 5% […]

WINGER Jonah Lomu has been dropped by the All Blacks due to fitness concerns, and will take the field for New Zealand A against Australia in Canberra for a two game tour of the country. The A side take on ACT Brumbies, the Super 12 side, in Canberra on Saturday, and a week later will […]

WHILE out of the singles competitions at Wimbledon, South Africa has two standard-bearers in the women’s doubles draw quarterfinals. Mariaan de Swardt and Ukrainian Elena Tatarkova are ninth seeds, and quickly beat Spain’s Virginia Ruano Pascal and rgentina’s Paola Suarez 6-4 6-3. Liezel Horn and Slovenian partner Katarina Srebotnik disposed of sixth seeds Lisa Raymond […]

THE “National Reconciliation Council”, Niger’s ruling military body, on Wednesday adopted a draft constitution for the Fifth Republic. It states that Niger will in future be ruled by “a president elected under universal suffrage who will be politically responsible except in cases of high treason.” The president will appoint the prime minister, cabinet ministers and […]

AN antique ring, set with a thumbnail-sized diamond, has gone missing from a parliamentary library. The diamond ring, bequeathed to the nation in 1917 by mining magnate Sydney Mendelssohn, was displayed in a case below a portrait of the financier and diamnond magnate in a wing of the parliamentary library housing a collection of Mendelssohn’s […]

TELKOM reported a drop in attributable earnings and share prices, and an increase in operating costs, on Thursday. Its attributable income for the year ended March was R2,3-billion, R0,2-billion less than the previous year. Dividends per share are at 59,5c from 98,1c per share last year. There has been a sharp increase in net operating […]