South Africa’s producer price index (PPI) rose by 5,5% year-on-year in April from a 5,4% increase in March, Statistics South Africa said on Thursday. Commented Mike Schussler, economist at T-Sec: "It’s a bit higher than I expected and I suspect it will have a negative impact on the bond market. But I don’t think it’s the end of the world."
Ugandan troops have killed a gunman who shot dead at least 10 civilians this week in a bloody rampage at a camp for war-displaced people in northern Uganda, the military said on Thursday. Soldiers had been looking for the man, a militia member responsible for guarding the Ogwete camp for internally displaced people, since he fled the area after Monday’s killing spree.
Sinai Bedouins have pledged their assistance to Egyptian security forces in their search for people suspected of involvement in deadly attacks on Red Sea tourist resorts in the last two years, the official news agency Mena reported. ”There is an agreement between all the tribe leaders of central Sinai to help the security forces,” said Abdallah Juhama, one of the elders of Sinai’s Tarabin tribe.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) voiced fears on Thursday that South Africa and the African National Congress are drifting towards a dictatorship. ”Dictatorship never announces its arrival,” Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said in Johannesburg. ”It won’t, like drum majorettes, beat drums and parade down the street to announce it has arrived.”
Only weeks after warning that Zimbabwean inflation had topped 1 000%, the Imara financial-services group has now alerted investors to the fact that the figure is fast approaching 2 000%. John Legat, Harare-based CEO of Imara Asset Management, gave the 1 000% alert in mid-April, with official confirmation coming by the end of the month.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas gave Fatah and Hamas a deadline on Thursday to end their deadly rivalry or else he would call a referendum, which could lead to a new national-unity government. Abbas’s shock announcement came on the first day of cross-party talks aimed at drawing a line under divisions between his Fatah movement and the Islamists of Hamas.
Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille has come out firing against the Democratic Alliance over what she describes as its "hypocrisy", by entering into coalitions with its arch-rival African National Congress in towns "all over the Western Cape". De Lille has been sparring with the DA after it accused her of lying.
Robert Pires is leaving Champions League finalists Arsenal for a two-year deal with Spanish side Villarreal, the French winger confirmed on Thursday. ”After six wonderful years at Arsenal, full of fantastic moments, I have decided to accept a new challenge at Villarreal for the next two years of my career,” the 32-year-old said on the English Premiership side’s website.
Recent global events, including high costs of imported oil, have necessitated a review of South Africa’s planned liberalisation of the petroleum sector, outgoing Minister of Minerals and Energy Lindiwe Hendricks said on Thursday. The minister said that the impact of the increases could result in the slowing down of global economic growth.
The government of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe said it would ”descend” on schools in the country that hiked fees without permission from the authorities, it was reported on Thursday. The threat appears to be directed mainly at private schools, which are often run by trusts in Zimbabwe.