Staff Reporter

South Africa’s third-quarter 2004 gross domestic product growth increased by 5,6% on a quarter-on- quarter seasonally adjusted annualised basis from a revised 4.5% (initial estimate 3.9%) in the second quarter, Statistics South Africa said on Tuesday.

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/140506/shaik_icon_new.gif" align=left>Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille completed her testimony at the Durban High Court on Tuesday and told how she blew the whistle on alleged arms deal irregularities. After giving evidence in the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial, De Lille said she would "never, never" reveal the source of her information. <li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=126298">Chippy Shaik ‘misinformed’ Scopa</a>

Although the rand has breached five-year highs against the US dollar, its move is a dollar story rather than a rand story, says Vivienne Taberer, portfolio manager at Investec Asset Management. "If you look at the trade-weighted rand, it closed at 61,87 on Monday, a level that is still lower than the trade weighted high of 63,55 reached on the 21st of July, when the rand was trading at R6,31 to the dollar.

As the year is hurtling to a close, it’s time to relax. So this week is dedicated to a large array of interestingly silly stuff, as well as fun things to idly look at — while killing time at the office and waiting to go on holiday. Perhaps … find out where you are in relation to overhead satellites? Or browse through the unusual gallery of artworks created with the female breast.

The Afrikander Lease announced on Monday that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with UK-based Nufcor International Limited. In terms of the memorandum, Nufcor, which is equally owned by AngloGold Ashanti Limited and Rand Merchant Bank, will now be the exclusive global marketer and distributor of Aflease’s U308 uranium oxide concentrates.

This was a victorious year for women environmentalists in Africa. The highlight was the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai in October, while on the same day, two of <i>Earthyear</i>’s journalists were fêted at the annual SAB Environmental Journalists of the Year Awards.

This is a country of mood swings, anxiety attacks and febrile excitement, and we ride the big, crude indicators — sports scores, the rand, emigration statistics — like kids at a funfair, alternately terrified, exhilarated and petulant. Has a long year of rate cuts, all of them shrugged off by the tumescent rand, really brought the cost of money down to a level that will pacify Mboweni’s critics in business, labour and NGOs? Don’t bet on it.

Britain was given a full outline of an illegal coup plot in a vital oil-rich African state, including the dates, details of arms shipments and key players, several months before the putsch was launched, according to confidential documents obtained by UK newspaper <i>The Observer</i>.
<li><a class="standardtextsmall" href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=126215&t=1">Memo deepens Thatcher link to coup</a>
<li><a class="standardtextsmall" href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=126212">SA mercenary gets 34 years</a>
<li><a class="standardtextsmall" href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=126082">’I feel like a corpse in a river'</a>

The Obiang regime in Equatorial Guinea on Friday jailed 11 foreign mercenaries for up to 34 years, as documents surfaced further implicating the former British prime minister’s son, Mark Thatcher, in a British-led coup attempt which has caused international embarrassment.
<li><a class="standardtextsmall" href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=126212">SA mercenary gets 34 years</a>
<li><a class="standardtextsmall" href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=126082">’I feel like a corpse in a river'</a>

Rented office space which was unoccupied by the South African National Aids Trust for 18 months has cost the state R792 000, according to national Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. She said legal possession of the Pretoria building had been taken on March 1 2003 but the building had only been physically occupied on September 1 2004.

All that’s disgusting, sticky and foul-smelling about the human body and how it functions make for an unusual but educational museum visit for children in Paris.
"Crad’expo employs the vocabulary of young children to describe flatulence, faeces and urination for example, "to dare to speak of things that one does not usually speak of", organiser Perrine Wyplosz told reporters.

The Competition Appeal Court granted Gold Fields a partial interdict on Friday against Harmony’s early settlement offer, until final approval had been received for Harmony’s acquisition of Gold Fields shares by the Competition Tribunal or the court itself.

President Robert Mugabe is expected to read the riot act to Zanu-PF Bulawayo provincial leaders on Friday over simmering dissent within his party. Mugabe is due to meet senior Zanu-PF Bulawayo politicians to tackle the infighting which intensified after Sunday’s controversial nomination of new party leaders.

"Mention the name Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and the name Stompie Seipei immediately comes to many a South African mind. The death of this child activist in 1989 will hang around Nelson Mandela’s former wife’s neck for the rest of her life." Journalists and political analysts struggled to understand that ordinary people still loved and adored Winnie, despite this dark stain on her record, writes Max du Preez.

HIV/Aids is taking a bite out of profits throughout corporate South Africa, with the already embattled mining sector particularly hard hit. According to a report by the South African Business Coalition on HIV and Aids (Sabcoha) released this week, 62% of mines surveyed by the Bureau for Economic Research indicated that the epidemic is already hurting their bottom lines.

Yet again, we’re approaching the cold and clinically prepared marketing scam known as Christmas, when the public are conned into buying rubbish they don’t need, conned into expecting positive emotions they won’t experience, and deliberately manipulated into getting deeper into debt. Here’s a good idea, though: browse through the pix — and the police reports — at <i>Santarchy!</i>

They just don’t make ’em like they used to. This week, it took the grey-haired man in the purple cassock to crystallise the national psyche, with all its imperfections and its challenges, perfectly. With the benefit of wisdom and age, Archbishop Desmond Tutu made clear his love for his "rainbow nation" — and then he laid right in. It had, he argued, by and large become the sycophantic nation.

South African agricultural group Afgri announced on Wednesday that the Agri Sizwe empowerment trust had acquired 26.77% of Afgri Operations for R502-million. Afgri shareholders will benefit by way of a R368-million special distribution of the proceeds in the form of 110.5 cents per share dividend.

The Eastern Cape High Court recently heard a matter in which the Attorneys Fidelity Fund and the minister of justice and constitutional development were sued by more than 100 clients for alleged theft. The fund won because a recently amended clause that determines that the fund cannot be held responsible for theft of money intended for investment by attorneys on behalf of clients. The clients argued that the amendment was invalid.