Staff Reporter

The Kagiso consortium said on Tuesday it is still engaged in processes to secure certain of the media assets of New Africa Investments Limited (Nail). The consortium is engaged in a tussle with rival bidders the Tiso consortium for Nail’s assets, with the latter looking at this stage to be the preferred bidder.

Marumo Moerane, counsel for National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka, said on Tuesday that a report which concluded that his client was "most probably" an apartheid spy was factually flawed.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=23753">Was Mac Maharaj a spy?</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=23724">Sparks fly</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=23710">’Mo Shaik fingered Ngcuka’ </a>

Former intelligence operative Mo Shaik handed reporter Ranjeni Munusamy an intelligence report stating that head prosecutor Bulelani Ngcuka was a probable apartheid spy, the Hefer commission heard on Tuesday.

A Sudanese cargo plane exploded while preparing to land at Wau airport in southern Sudan, killing all 13 aboard, state-run Omdurman radio repoted on Tuesday. The Antonov 12 was carrying food and money on a routine flight late on Monday afternoon from Khartoum.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=23718">SPLA denies involvement</a>

Three days of heavy fighting in the northwest of the Galgadud region of Somalia have left at least 50 people dead and more than 150 wounded, local sources in the regional capital, Dusa-Mareb, said on Monday. The clashes were possibly triggered by revenge killings for the death last year of a prominent Marehan businessman.

President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria met with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in Harare on Monday, ahead of next month’s Commonwealth summit to which Mugabe has not been invited. Obasanjo, as the host of the summit, holds the key to invitations to the meeting.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=23630">Why Mugabe can’t come to summit</a>

The Shoprite strike, said one analyst, had something for everyone. Central to it was the position of casual workers, and demands for a guaranteed number of hours so as to create some certainty around rates of pay and the realignment of casual wage rates. But the strike also marked the first real challenge by workers to a sectoral wage determination drafted by the Department of Labour.

There has been much hustle and bustle around the appointment of South Africa’s second network operator (SNO). The process itself has, to say the least, been fraught with delays and uncertainty. Trevor van de Ven wonders what effect the SNO will have on the ICT industry, business and consumers.

Few can have missed the media feeding frenzy that arose last week over the latest in a long series of grimy revelations to have come out of Clarence House, the palatial London residence of the Prince of Wales and home ground to a veritable host of his sycophants and pilot fish.

A million jobs opportunities over five years at a cost of R20-billion. The public works programme revealed this week is the biggest, most precise and most expensive pledge the government has made since it came to power in 1994.

Renamo confidently expects to win the majority of the 33 municipalities it will contest in next week’s local elections. "No doubt about it," says Renamo secretary general Vianna Magalhaes. "Campaigning has been going very well. Renamo’s only problem is financial."

Trade union Solidarity on Thursday stated that it is to take arms manufacturer Denel to the arbitration court after certain divisions of Denel failed to comply with a wage agreement negotiated earlier this year. Solidarity lawyer AC van Wyk said this would be a case with great significance for organised labour in South Africa.

The estranged husband of Johannesburg socialite Hazel Crane, killed on Monday in an apparent assassination attempt, was not a mafia "don" but a lieutenant to Yossi Harari, said to be the head of Israel’s notorious Ramat Amidar gang. Police believe Harari visited South Africa and stayed with Crane’s husband, Shai Avissar, and his then lieutenant Lior Saat.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=23503">Closing arguments in Saat case</a>

Eskom on Thursday announced a continuation of its relationship with Arivia.kom with the signing of a service-level agreement contract worth more than R1-billion to address Eskom’s information technology requirements to the end of 2005. Eskom supplies more than 50% of the electricity consumed in Africa.

A joint statement released on Wednesday afternoon by Media24 and Vusi Mona confirmed an earlier report by the <i>Mail & Guardian Online</i> that Mona had resigned as editor of the <i>City Press</i> newspaper. The statement also addressed accusations of Mona’s outside business interests.

Thinking of buying a diamond for your loved one as a symbol of your eternal love? You’ll want to read what Ian Fraser has to say on the commercialist con game that is the diamond industry first, as well as its links to al-Qaeda and the funding of a range of deadly wars. And DVD fans will be pleased to get one up on local stockists by finding out what Amazon has in store.

Security was very tight at the Johannesburg High Court on Tuesday at the hearing of Israeli national Lior Saat, alleged to have murdered Shai Avissar, the estranged husband of socialite Hazel Crane, who was murdered on Monday. Members of the media were forbidden to sit on the press bench in court.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=23332">Murdered socialite feared for her life</a>

Inkatha Freedom Party national council secretary Sue Felgate died after a long battle with cancer at her home in Ulundi on Tuesday morning. She was the party’s first white member.

About 30% of people living with HIV/Aids worldwide live in Southern Africa, an area that is home to just 2% of the world’s population. “The most devastating social and economic impacts of Aids are still to come,” said Dr Peter Piot, UNAids executive director.

Retailers can expect an inflation-beating 9% increase in Christmas sales to R50,2-billion this year, but for many this will come too late as liquidations are set to continue at current record levels until the first quarter of 2004, says Credit Guarantee senior economist Luke Doig.