Staff Reporter

THE future of provisionally liquidated Namibian copper mining company Tsumeb Corporation Limited has to be resolved this week, says liquidator Des Mathews. Mathews said on Sunday he is expecting to finalise what will happen to TCL this week. The company has been in provisional liquidation since April 29 and its closure threw some 2000 employees […]

UNITED States Defence Secretary William Cohen is due to arrive in Cape Town on Tuesday morning for talks with Defence Minister Joe Modise and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki. Defence ministry spokesperson Puso Tladi said Cohen will sign a military co-operation agreement. Cohen, on his first visit to South Africa, is also expected to discuss US […]

NIGERIA’S fuel refinery at Kaduna in the north has resumed operations, pumping some 1,5- million litres of fuel a day to a depot in the region, the plant’s manager said on Friday. The restoration of the refinery, under a $214-million contract awarded to French oil giant Total, is a key step in ending the chronic […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 12.30pm. DONALD GORDON, founder and chairman of Liberty Life, announced his retirement this weekend, clearing the way for a proposed merger between the firm and Standard Bank Investment Corporation (Stanbic). Business Day reports that the retirement will herald shifts in Gordon’s control of the Liberty Group, and may allow a […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 10.45am. AVENGING their earlier loss at the hands of Kaizer Chiefs, Bush Bucks stole the show in Umtata 1-0 on Sunday. The match provided a few close calls. Bucks’ William Mugeyi gave Brain Baloyi some work to do with a crisp free kick in the 12th minute. Then Chiefs’ Pollen […]

THE Sage Group is expecting a high rating at the end of the month from US insurance rating agency AM Best. Sage is the only South African financial services firm to hold a life insurance subsidiary in the US, Sage Life of America. The rating will be a cue to open the American firm for […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Sun City | Monday 1.20pm. SCOTT DUNLAP’S errors were insignificant as he swept to a five-stroke victory and the first prize of R316_ 000 in the Dimension Data Pro-Am at the Gary Player Country Club in Sun City on Sunday, which is more than can be said for his caddie. Dunlap was initially […]

THE Johannesburg Stock Exchange wants the laws regulating financial markets changed to allow it to merge with the country’s bonds and futures exchanges, its representatives told Parliament on Thursday. Addressing the finance committee, JSE legal counsel Nicky Newton-King said the merger will make for increased efficiency and lowered costs, making the new exchange internationally competitive.

FOREIGN exchange operations are to start operating on a daily basis in Nigeria from next month to cope with rising demand, the country’s central bank (CBN) said on Friday. CBN spokesperson Tony Ede said that demand at the Automated Foreign Exchange Market in Abuja, the official market for foreign exchange in Nigeria, continued to rise […]

SEVERAL major diamond producers — Rembrandt’s Trans Hex, Ocean Diamond Mining Holdings and Benguela Concessions — are about to merge, with the first two likely to buy out Benco. A joint cautionary statement was issued on Thursday. Analysts believe the move is inevitable, given Benco’s current listlessness. ODM would stand to gain not only Benco’s […]

FOLLOWING a substantial drop in sales, from an average 1600 a month to around 1000 in January, Hyundai Motor Distributors is planning to retrench up to 10% of its sales staff as part of ongoing restructuring. But workers at Hyundai’s Botswana assembly plant in Gaborone are not expected to be affected. Hyundai is not alone […]

STANDARD Bank Investment Corporation’s offshore investment division will cost the company dearly when it publishes earnings for the year to December 31 on Tuesday, according to analysts. The company is believed to have lost 41,7-million. The London branch alone is believed to have lost 34-million.

DONALD Gordon, the founder and chairman of South Africa’s Liberty Life (LibLife), unexpectedly announced his retirement on Friday — news that created speculation of a merger with Standard Bank. In a short statement, the insurer said the future of bourse-listed Liberty Investors Ltd, through which the Gordon family exercises control of its dominant shareholding in […]

Eddie Butler Five Nations Rugby The world’s worst-run sport is about to take a breather from self-abuse. Like a kindly great aunt arriving with a carpet- bag full of winter woollies and sage advice on the temptations of the flesh, the Five Nations Championship is upon us. In a way, the old dear’s arrival is […]

Matthew Krouse Down the tube The coming week will see two showings on e.tv of a local documentary directed by Jurgen Schadeberg dedicated to the life of photographer Ernest Cole called, Ernest Cole 1940-1990 Photo Journalist. It will show on Wednesday at 9pm and then again on Thursday at 10am. Photographer Ernest Cole is one […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni A man who was arrested on charges of stealing computers which were to be distributed to North-West province schools was robbed of the equipment before it could be recovered. Police are not able to explain why they did not take the computers – more than 900 of them valued at R12 […]

Lesotho Sechaba ka’Nkosi The opposition Basotholand Congress Party (BCP) in Lesotho is deeply divided with some members attempting to oust its president, Molapo Qhobela. They want to replace him with executive member Deborah Khaulelo Raditapole, who is being touted by some in the opposition alliance as Lesotho’s future first woman prime minister. The party offered […]

THE trial of a former Kenyan game park warden on charges of murdering British tourist Julie Ward in September 1988 was postponed in the Nairobi High Court on Thursday. Judge Daniel Aganyanya postponed the trial to February 26 to give prosecutors time to gather more evidence in the trial of Simon ole Makallah, now assistant […]

Ted Leggett The police have promised a “zero tolerance” approach to the Western Cape crisis, a term that has been bandied about a lot lately. There is a growing sense that they are being too soft on criminals, that a concern for human rights has emasculated what was once a potent police service. “Zero tolerance” […]

Chiara Carter A Cape Town bus company employee is asking the Labour Court to find that he has been paid less than a white colleague because he is black – a case which, if successful, is likely to set a precedent for challenging discrimination in the workplace. Michael Louw, a buyer for Golden Arrow Bus […]

With every short-sighted official in soccer having his say about chief executives and junior sides, Andrew Muchineripi wonders if anyone can see the field for the goalposts The grey clouds over Pretoria this week matched my mood with the Premier Soccer League (PSL) chief executive fiasco and the humiliation of the national junior team triggering […]

to die for Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Vista University’s final 1998 examination results improved dramatically – and some lecturers admit this was after they received death threats from students. Lectures at the university’s five campuses were disrupted last year by a student boycott, and the final examinations were postponed for two weeks after students said […]

THE Pretoria Regional Court refused bail to Schalk Willem Krugel (34) on Friday. Krugel is charged with three counts of conspiracy to murder and two of theft of cash. The case is related to the disappearance in 1996 of Stephanus Pelser (35) and Andrew Sweetnam (31) as well as Namibian lawyer Jan Gysbert Malan (39). […]

CHRISTIAN FIGENSCHOU, Johannesburg | Thursday 9.30pm. A PAIR of advisers to two former British Conservative Party prime ministers are orchestrating a campaign aimed at undermining thousands of claims being brought against a British company by sick South African asbestos workers. The Independent reports on Thursday that Charles Lewington and Wilf Weeks are advising Cape plc, […]

FERIAL HAFFAJEE TAKING STOCK Lazarus Madiseng proffered the fruit of democracy. A prickly pear, it is sweet and juicy. The assignment: to find out about the life of ordinary South Africans since 1994, when change came to this land. They don’t come a lot more ordinary than Madiseng – a kindly grandfather who after a […]

society My colleague Mungo Soggot’s glib call for a total ban on guns (“What’s the hold-up on banning guns?” January 29 to February 4 and preceding editorial “Ban guns, build jails, fire Sydney”) is as useful as a call to ban malaria. The fact is that guns are not so much a problem in themselves […]

Hennie Bester is the Democratic Party’s blue-eyed boy in the Western Cape, writes Chiara Carter `Hennie who?” is the likely response of Capetonians when they hear the name of the man who might well hold the balance of power in the Western Cape after the elections. But while Western Cape Democratic Party leader Hennie Bester […]

Thokozani Mtshali The New National Party in Mpumalanga withdrew the former mayor of Ethanduk’ukhanya township in Piet Retief from its election list following his arrest for attempted armed robbery, attempted murder and fraud. Alpheus Msibi, who was chair of the NNP in Piet Retief, and his nephew were arrested in November last year and charged […]

The arrest of six Pagad G-Force members may not be a breakthrough after all, writes Marianne Merten The twin brother of Yusuf Jacobs – who died after he was shot by police at a People against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) demonstration last month – was among five men arrested outside Prince Alfred in the Karoo […]

THE KwaZulu-Natal provincial government may soon retrench redundant employees, Finance MEC Peter Miller said on Thursday. Miller said at a press conference that national government will soon release guidelines for retrenchments and severance packages. A process of job evaluation will begin in all departments to determine who gets the chop. About 83% of the 1998/99 […]

offer Howard Barrell Heavy pressure from Democratic Republic of Congo President Laurent Kabila’s military allies lies behind his statement on Wednesday that he is ready to open peace talks and sign a ceasefire with rebels. But security analysts and the rebels remain doubtful about Kabila’s seriousness in the search for peace in the war-ravaged Central […]

Cameron Duodu: LETTER FROM THE NORTH When Aids began to take its appalling toll on humankind, we were all scared as hell of it, of course. We listened with rapt attention to what the scientists had to say, for if anyone was going to save us from it, it was the scientists who had discovered […]