Bestselling author Eoin Colfer, whose Artemis Fowl series of action-fantasy novels has sold more than nine million copies worldwide, may well wish to operate under a cloak of secrecy — as his famous teenaged creation does — when he arrives in South Africa this week.
Consumer rights champion Isabel Jones died in the early hours of Mach 11, said her son Adam Jones. Described at one time as all that stood between South Africans and high prices, Jones underwent heart surgery in November and made a full recovery, her son said.
An extinct population of small-bodied humans has been found on the Palau group of islands in the Pacific Ocean, a University of the Witwatersrand researcher said on Tuesday. Palaeoanthropologist professor Lee Berger discovered the fossils while vacationing in Palau in 2006. ”We were on a kayak excursion when a guide asked me if I wanted to see a cave with some old bones.”
Oil prices struck a record high of $109,72 per barrel on Tuesday after the dollar hit a fresh all-time low against the euro and amid persistent energy-supply concerns, traders said. New York’s main oil contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, soared to the historic level, beating the previous peak of $108,21, which was set on Monday.
There has been substantial progress in basic service delivery in the country, Statistics South Africa said on Tuesday. It released the municipal data of its 2007 Community Survey, which gives a breakdown of basic service delivery in each of the 283 municipalities in the country.
Civil engineering and construction group Stefanutti and Bressan on Tuesday announced a R1,1-billion merger with international construction group Stocks Limited. The merger would position the new group as a major competitor in the first-tier construction sector with turnover of almost R5-billion, Stefanutti and Bressan said in a statement.
Zimbabwe’s government on Tuesday sought to allay fears over a new equity law to give locals a controlling share in business ownership, saying it would not lead to expropriation of foreign-owned firms. "This is not going to be expropriation," Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Paul Mangwana told a news conference.
Sudan President Omar al-Bashir on Tuesday raised doubts over a peace deal that Senegal said the leaders of Sudan and Chad are to initial in Dakar on the eve of an Islamic summit. Bashir referred to a Saudi-brokered deal signed in Riyadh in May 2007, when the two leaders made a pilgrimage to Mecca and prayed together inside the Kaaba, the holiest Muslim shrine.
![]()
There is no statute determining exactly what provisions should be in a search warrant, the Constitutional Court heard on Tuesday as African National Congress president Jacob Zuma and French arms company Thint began a last-ditch bid to prevent key documents from being used against them.
Minibus-taxi commuters should brace themselves for an increase in taxi fares due to the increase in the petrol price, the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) said on Tuesday. ”We are pressed and we can no longer afford petrol prices. We are forced to put our hands in the commuters’ pockets,” said Santaco general secretary Philip Taaibosch.