While the police and the government declined to comment on Wednesday on claims that two citizens held in Pakistan were plotting attacks on South African tourist destinations, the Democratic Alliance urged the authorities to keep the public properly informed of any real danger.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119792">’Terror’ pair under lock and key</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=119782">’Terror’ pair were to ‘attack Jo’burg'</a>
The current strength of the South African rand is unsustainable, according to private wealth management company Citadel’s chief investment officer, Dave Mohr. "The four factors that have resulted in a more than 50% appreciation in the rand over the past two-and-a-half years have all reversed over the past three months," he said.
The trade union Solidarity on Wednesday said it has requested the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) to appoint an independent arbiter to deal with the retrenchment process at dual listed telecommunications giant Telkom.
Lockheed Martin said on Tuesday it won a contract worth up to seven billion dollars over 20 years to develop the next-generation spy plane for the United States army. The defence and aerospace giant said the contract awarded on Tuesday is for -million to design and develop the aerial common sensor, an airborne intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and target-identification system.
Halliburton will pay ,5-million to settle a United States Securities and Exchange Commission probe that it failed to disclose a change in its accounting procedures in 1998 when the oil services conglomerate was run by vice-president Dick Cheney. Cheney was Halliburton’s CEO from 1995 to 2000. He resigned to be President George Bush’s running mate.
Responding to an ”erosion” of public trust in drug trial data, Eli Lilly promised to post online the research results — good and bad — for every drug it sells. Lilly said it will provide clinical data on the safety and effectiveness of each of its government-approved drugs on the internet by the end of the year.
Two crowded commuter trains crashed head-on in Harare on Wednesday, injuring at least 70 people, three of them seriously, witnesses and railroad officials said. Witnesses saw crewmen jump from the trains before impact at the Zimbabwean capital’s main station. Passenger cars rolled on to their sides.
At any given moment about 25 000 accused have been in prison in South Africa awaiting trial for over three months, and some have been there since 1996. ”Part of the Bill of Rights says that there should be no undue delay in concluding criminal trials. However, the reality is that these unsentenced prisoners often spend 23 hours of the day in a cell, with no rehabilitation, no work and no recreation.”
The African Union plans to transform a small force it was due to send to Sudan’s troubled Darfur region into a 2Â 000-strong peacekeeping mission, an AU official said on Wednesday. The pan-African body was already planning to send about 300 troops to Darfur to protect its observers and monitors in the country.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119827">Thousands march on UN in Sudan</a>
The Constitutional Court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal by 69 South Africans held in Harare against a judgement by the Pretoria High Court in June that the government be compelled to assist them. The men are being held on charges of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea.