EGYPT’s Oil Ministry has discovered four new oil and gas fields with an estimated total production of 5240 barrels per day of oil and total reserves of 41,5-million barrels. Official figures show Egyptian oil production in September was running at 768000 bpd versus 803100 bpd in September 1998. The Oil Ministry said in September the […]

NAMIBIA Breweries Limited is finalising a new joint venture with Germany’s biggest export brewery, the Bremen-based Beck & Co. In a statment NBL said an agreement has already been signed in terms of which a holding company will be formed with Ohlthaver & List as the majority shareholder. O&L said the venture is a “massive […]

aGregory Mthembu-Salter CROSSFIRE Howard Barrell’s article last week painted a depressing picture of life in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It seems that Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is both micro-managing her staff and routinely bypassing them, jetting off at short notice for consultations in the Great Lakes region, the results of which are made known only […]

Mercedes Sayagues Zimbabwean women scored a small victory when a magistrate was transferred from the civil and customary law section to the criminal section of Harare’s magistrate’s courts after complaints about his chauvinistic comments. On November 23, about 100 women toyi- toyied in downtown Harare to protest remarks by magistrate Billiard Mukwasa. He told a […]

Peter Dickson The Eastern Cape legislature’s minority of women members have established the first women’s caucus in a provincial legislature, in a determined bid to tackle gender imbalances and influence government policy over the next five years. Eastern Cape legislature deputy speaker and former welfare MEC Mandisa Marasha commented on the new body that comprises […]

Lisa Buckingham and Dan Atkinson in London There were red faces all round at accountancy firm KPMG this week after a report was published disclosing that fewer than one in five takeovers produces any value for shareholders. The consultancy firm was playing down suggestions it had tried to pull the report at the last minute […]

Tangeni Amupadhi Namibians went to the polls this week in the country’s second presidential and general elections since independence. The election started smoothly on Tuesday morning, but its credibility was later put in doubt when the main opposition party, the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), exposed that the ink used to mark the thumb of a […]

Peter Makurube Music The last Standard Bank Jazz Festival of the century will be the biggest and the best. The line-up of stars billed for Moretele Park in Mamelodi on December 12 sizzles with the cream of African and American music. The senior citizens of sound – Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa, Miriam Makeba, Caiphus Semenya […]

Labuschagne Wally Mbhele A senior policeman who once targeted the present-day chief of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), General Siphiwe Nyanda, for assassination, and abducted and tortured Nyanda’s wife, was this week bluntly denied amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Amid strong opposition to his application from victims’ families, Senior Superintendent […]

Heather Hogan When Sergeant Hendrik de Klerk (26) used only his hands to arrest an armed bank robber outside a bank in Hillbrow earlier this year, he never imagined he would be awarded the Top Cop of the Year award. When the robber shot at him, he disregarded his own safety: his only thought was […]