Staff Reporter

World number-four gold miner Gold Fields on Tuesday held its annual general meeting (AGM), which saw shareholders holding more than 70% of the group’s 492,033-million shares represented. Gold Fields shareholders voted on 10 ordinary resolutions and two special resolutions.

Foreign diamond traders have a responsibility to enhance economic growth in Africa and eradicate perceptions that the precious stone, like oil, is a curse to many African states, government news agency BuaNews on Tuesday quoted President Thabo Mbeki as saying.

It is not written in granite that countries must use their national currency in international trade. We must think "outside the box". South Africa has the option of choosing the euro or the dollar instead of the rand as its currency. The decision to adopt a common currency would mean the country ceases to have an exchange rate.

Here’s one of the reasons I like Americans — and you will too, after seeing this site, which is an online gallery of Americans holding up photographs of themselves showing hand-written apologies for US President George Bush having been elected. There are more than 300 pages of photographs sent in by honestly unhappy US citizens, trying to show the rest of the world that not all of the US voters are as stupid as it may seem to us outsiders.

Labourers from the fertile farms of South Africa’s northernmost province regularly take their grievances to a modest office in Musina’s Nancefield township, just south of the Zimbabwe border. Most labourers tell of abuse by farm owners, ranging from physical violence to illegal evictions. But behind every labourer’s dispute is a single issue: land.

South African telecommunications group Telkom on Monday reported a 59,8% rise in headline earnings per share to 536,9 cents for the six months ended September 30, from 335,9 cents a year ago. The group reported operating revenue of R21,52-billion from R20,036-billion a year earlier.

Iraq’s deputy prime minister has indicated for the first time that the much-heralded elections due in January could be derailed by the country’s violent insurgency. Barham Salih said the authorities were determined to hold the vote, but admitted they would have to assess the security situation nearer the time.

There is a continuous sequence of connections between all of us – “six degrees of separation” some have called it – and yet we seldom bother to look in the mirror and try to make sense of them. Like that song: “the foot bone connected to the ankle bone, the ankle bone connected to the leg bone, the leg bone connected to the knee bone”, et cetera, et cetera. How can we go on without recognising each other? And yet, willy-nilly, we do.

Behind a barrage of tank and artillery fire, United States troops charged on Saturday into southern Fallujah, overrunning the final insurgent stronghold in the city after nearly a week of intense urban combat that has killed 24 Americans and more than 1 000 insurgents.

Details of rapes and other atrocities against foreigners in Côte d’Ivoire began to emerge on Friday as thousands of expatriates continued to leave the West African state and African leaders moved to prevent the crisis from igniting the entire region.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Africa&ao=125477">Rapes, atrocities in Côte d’Ivoire</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Africa&ao=125415">Westerners plucked from chaos</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Africa&ao=125394">Côte d’Ivoire leaders in SA</a>

United States President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair committed themselves to seeking a viable Palestinian state on Friday, but only if the new leadership committed itself to democracy and the rule of law. Though Bush was lavish in his praise of Blair as a "statesman and a friend", and promised to commit some political "capital of the United States" to build a Palestinian state, the leaders’ statements were notably low on specifics.

Foreign residents in Abidjan were subjected to at least "37 serious atrocities, including three or four attested rapes", a French representative in C&ocirc;te d’Ivoire, Catherine Rechenmann, said on Friday. In Paris, a French military source said several dozen white women were raped.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Africa&ao=125415">Westerners plucked from chaos</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Africa&ao=125394">Côte d’Ivoire leaders in SA</a>

Hospital and clinics group Network Healthcare Holdings (Netcare) said on Friday that, notwithstanding satisfactory growth and activity in its core hospital and ancillary health-care divisions, its results for the year ended September 30 will be impacted by period-specific, non-recurring items and prior year adjustments.

The official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) has urged Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri to reject any "crony capital deals" such as that involving the purchase of 15,1% held by Thintana in the monopoly fixed line company, Telkom.

Opposition is consolidating within government circles to the bid by a politically influential empowerment consortium for a 15,1%, R7-billion stake in Telkom. The leading figure in the consortium, former director general of communications and Didata chairperson Andile Ngcaba, is described by critics as the architect of a series of sweetheart policies, which protected Telkom’s monopoly and placed Ngcaba himself in pole position to benefit from the deal.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=Insight-National&ao=125423">’New charterists’ face challenge from old</a>

United States troops were drawn into a new offensive in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Thursday to tackle a tide of insurgency unchecked by the military assault on Fallujah. In Baghdad at least 17 Iraqis were killed in a suicide car bombing as gunmen set up checkpoints on roads in the west of the capital and fought battles with US troops.

Presidents and dignitaries from more than 50 countries flew into Cairo on Friday morning for a half-hour funeral service for the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, before his body was flown to his headquarters in Ramallah for burial. On Thursday night, Palestinian workers were still preparing the grave site in the battered compound.

In the world of covert action and diplomacy it is called "plausible denial". In court it’s known as establishing reasonable doubt. In the Schabir Shaik trial this week, defence counsel François van Zyl focused on one crucial aspect of the state’s case — the alleged March 2000, R500 000 bribe agreement between Shaik, Deputy President Jacob Zuma and Alain Thetard, the local representative of the French Thales/Thomson Group.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will be buried in his Ramallah headquarters in the West Bank but on soil from Jerusalem, Local Affairs Minister Jamal Shubaki said on Thursday. Meanwhile, Israel will continue implementing its unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Israel Premier Ariel Sharon said on Thursday.