Black-owned diversified firm Mvelaphanda Group on Monday announced that the suspensive agreement by which Incwala Resources would acquire a 22,9% in mining group Mvelaphanda Resources had fallen through. The conditions included obtaining the consent of the Mvela board for the transfer of the management agreement to Incwala.
South Africa recorded a deficit of R3,898-billion for its trade with non-Southern African Customs Union trading partners in February after a record deficit of R7,668-billion in January, according to the latest Customs & Excise figures released on Friday.
Israel suspects journalists, particularly press photographers, of being behind the spread of deadly bird flu in the Jewish state, an agriculture ministry official told Agence France-Presse. "It’s one of our working hypotheses," the official said, asking not be identified. "Bird flu can be transmitted on clothing, footwear, the wheels of cars and even on cameras," the official added.
A seven-year old boy shot in the chest during a third day of sustained rioting by Kurds in eastern Turkey died overnight. The child was fatally wounded on Thursday when about 10 000 angry protesters took to the streets of Diyarbakir, Turkey’s largest Kurdish-majority city, for the funerals of three people killed during the earlier clashes with police.
A Japanese burglar who thought he was lucky to find an unlocked door on Friday was shocked to be arrested by 20 massive sumo wrestlers who were staying at the building. Konoshin Kawabata (48) was rummaging inside a room in Osaka in the early hours when he was suddenly confronted by wrestler Dewanosato, who stands 180cm tall and weighs 131kg.
I have found Jacob Zuma’s defence in his rape trial quite disturbing because, if true, it raises difficult questions regarding sexuality and HIV prevention. Who chooses to have condomless and unlubricated sex with a person who is known to be living with HIV? Someone already living with HIV, who should know the risks and dangers of reinfection?
Sitting at my desk on a Monday morning, I find I am at a loss. What can I write about, what helpful comments can I possibly offer to our engaging young democracy? Could I remark cynically on pedestrian issues like the news that billions of Brett Kebble’s ill-gotten gains are said to have been strewn around the upper echelons of the ANC?
Walt Disney could not have dreamed up a better plot: King Thabo of Mzansi is getting on in years and will have to abdicate soon. Viceroy Jacob, a man of great charm and greed, starts openly to preen himself for the throne — as, secretly, does Notary Kgalema. The king, who does not like to be reminded of his own mortality, decides to chop off the viceroy’s head.
A severe tropical cyclone packing winds of up to 250kph slammed into a major oil and mining region of western Australia on Thursday but missed the area’s main population centres. Cyclone Glenda hit land about 4pm local time in cattle-grazing territory in the Pilbara region about 200km south-west of the massive oil- and ore-shipping centre of Karratha.
South Africa’s producer inflation data index rose by 5,5% year-on-year (y/y) in February — unchanged from January’s rate, Statistics South Africa said on Thursday. The producer price index (PPI) rose by 0,2% on a monthly basis after January’s monthly decrease of 0,1%.
Zimbabwe, known for its spectacular Victoria Falls and game parks, suffered a 49% drop in tourism revenue last year, compared with 2004, a state daily reported on Thursday. Tourist arrivals from overseas declined by 39% in 2005 from the previous year, while those from Africa also went down 11%.
Africa must impose severe punishment on mercenaries and terrorists to stamp out the scourge, Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema said late on Wednesday. Obiang arrived on Wednesday for a three-day state visit to Zimbabwe aimed at deepening cooperation after Harare two years ago thwarted an alleged coup against the leader.
Police in The Hague caught three drunk drivers all behind the wheel of the same car within hours of each other early on Wednesday, police said in a statement. The series started when a 40-year-old man was stopped in a routine traffic control on Wednesday morning. He failed a breathalyser test and while police fined him, one of his passengers got behind the wheel and drove off.
"This is your captain speaking, er, I’ve landed at the wrong airport. Er, sorry." A bungling pilot flew straight into the centre of an investigation on Wednesday after mistakenly landing at a military airbase rather than the regular destination in Northern Ireland.
Angola became the top source of crude imports to oil-hungry China last month, replacing Saudi Arabia, a Swiss-based analyst said. The former Portuguese colony shipped 2,12-million tonnes of crude to China in February, ahead of Saudi Arabia’s 1,98-million tonnes, Petromatrix Gmbh, a trade advisory and risk management company, said in a statement received on Thursday.
Former United States president Bill Clinton this week said he supports mandatory HIV testing in countries with high prevalence.
A purse containing a $1-million worth of jewellery was on its way back to its owner in Canada on Tuesday after being forgotten on a bench in a town near San Francisco. Shahla Ghannadian had entrusted her $2 000 Louis Vuitton handbag and its precious contents to her husband after they stopped at an ice cream parlour in the city of Sausalito on Sunday
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas arrives in South Africa on Thursday for talks with President Thabo Mbeki following elections that have shaken up the political landscape in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The new Kadima party of Ehud Olmert won elections in Israel on Tuesday, trouncing the right-wing Likud party.
Sony’s painful restructuring drive is progressing well but reform efforts are still at an early stage, the group’s president said in an interview published on Wednesday. "I think we’ve made sizable progress in regaining confidence and improving earnings but in my mind, our reform is still in its early stages," said Ryoji Chubachi.
South Africa’s consumer price index excluding mortgage rate changes (CPIX) for metro and other areas, which is used by the South African Reserve Bank for its inflation target, rose by 4,5% year-on-year (y/y) in February after increasing by 4,3% y/y in January, Statistics South Africa said on Wednesday.
The Cairns Group of agricultural exporting nations warned on Wednesday of "dangerous" consequences if major trading blocs do not agree to significant cuts in tariffs and farm subsidies by an April deadline in world trade talks. "It would be dangerous to assume that the significant moves that are required by major members can be left until the eleventh hour. They cannot," the group said.
Australia braced for the second powerful cyclone to strike in two weeks as a major storm bore down on the country’s mineral-rich west coast, forcing a halt to some mining and oil drilling operations in the region. Cyclone Glenda was upgraded to the highest category-five tropical storm overnight but later weakened slightly to a category-four.
Thousands of people in south-west China, who were evacuated after a weekend gas explosion, remained unable to return home on Tuesday with dangerous gas still leaking, officials said. The explosion on Saturday in Chongqing municipality led to the evacuation of 11 500 people from villages near the site of the leak.
Women are increasingly becoming savvy investors and, despite a legacy of earning less than their male counterparts, are enthusiastically entering the investment arena, says First National Bank (FNB). The FNB Residential Property Barometer showed that 20% of buyers in the last quarter of 2005 were solely women, up from 15% in the previous quarter.
The shortage of technically trained personnel, especially among women, was a challenge for the South African mining industry and more must to done to address South Africa’s skills shortage, Kumba Resources chairman Allen Morgan said. The group firmly believed that the best form of empowerment was training people.
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Open-Source Centre plans to open a satellite centre in Soweto in May this year to expose untapped information and communications technology skills and research potential in the township just south of Johannesburg.
Sophos has announced the new version of Sophos Anti-Virus for Linux, which now includes on-access scanning for Linux platforms. SAV for Linux version 5.0 detects and disinfects viruses, Trojans, worms and spyware targeting Linux, Windows and other platforms whenever files are accessed on a Linux computer.
Muslim worshippers are flocking to see a pair of fish in Liverpool which appear to bear the words "Allah" and "Muhammad", their owner said on Monday. Ali Al-Waqedi (23) who hailed the Oscar fish as a "message from God," said he had loaned them to a friend whose house was close to the local mosque so that worshippers could visit more easily.
About 1 700 workers at tyre firm Goodyear in Port Elizabeth were expected to embark on an indefinite strike this week after management had reportedly refused to permanently employ 300 temporary workers for the past five years, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) said in a statement on Monday.
Australia, Britain and New Zealand may play a role in securing the piracy-prone Malacca Strait but the sovereignty of bordering states would be safeguarded, Malaysia’s defence minister said on Monday. "They are interested in the situation in the Straits of Malacca," Najib Razak said after talks with the armed forces chiefs of Australia, Britain, New Zealand, and Singapore.
British men show far more loyalty, commitment and self-sacrifice towards their favourite football team than towards their partners, a study published on Monday showed. About 94% said they would never stop loving their team no matter how badly they fared while 52% would gladly ditch a relationship that was not going well.
German media giant Bertelsmann is making preparations to sell its music company holdings including a 50% stake in Sony BMG, the world’s second-largest music group, a report said on Monday. The <i>Financial Times</i> cited unnamed people briefed on the plans as saying the company has arranged for investment banks to prepare the disposals.