Search Results for: South Africa

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CHINA has played tit-for-tat in unusually public diplomatic spat over temporary’ safeguard duties that were imposed by Beijing last May on US exports of nine steel products. The United States had published a pointed set of questions about whether the duties had actually lapsed as planned by November and over exemptions from such tariffs for South Korea and Slovakia on the apparently dubious grounds that they were “developing countries”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PLANS to erect a 72 turbine offshore wind-farm off the Danish coast are expected to attract Euro 96 million in loans from the European Investment Bank. It has revealed it is considering funding the 600 GWh of electricity per annum project, which is projected to be in full operation by the end of this year.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE DISHWAHER, that symbol of the modern household, appears to have provided a crucial breakthrough in minimising the impact of oil slicks on birdlife. According to a University of California study, two brands of dishwashing detergents, “Dawn” from Proctor and Gamble, and Birdwash, marketed as a joint bird and dish washer detergent in New Zealand by Tergo, are the ideal agents for cleaning the birds.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union must not only build additional electricity interconnection capacity between its own Member States, but also with countries to the south in north Africa and to the east in eastern Europe, the latest EU heads of government meeting in Brussels has concluded.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE 19th century saw imperial rivalry create the “Great Game”, when Russia and the British Empire tweaked one another’s tails in the region that following Russia’s Bolshevik revolution became known as Soviet Central Asia. The old Great Game was tied to control of India, and to gems and gold.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SUPERMARKET boom in sub-Saharan Africa is raising standards in food production and distribution, which many small producers struggle to meet, said the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). It says the growth of mass retail in South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland is having “a direct impact on the lives of millions of small farmers.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE MAJORITY of Iraqis were delighted by the fall of Saddam Hussein, witness the banging of shoes on the heads of his fallen statues. But among the happiest were organised criminals who have exploited the lawlessness following the end of his regime.…

BY RICHARD HURST
SOUTH African Fuels and chemicals company Sasol has said it is optimistic of receiving coal-supply contracts from the country’s power utility Eskom because of its launch of a programme to demothball eight electricity plants over the next five years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL in Paris, ALAN OSBORN in London, MARK ROWE in Singapore, ED PETERS and DON GASPER in Hong Kong, RICHARD HURST in Johannesburg, MONICA DOBIE and PHILIP FINE in Montreal, MATTHEW BRACE in Brisbane and ALEX SMAILES in Port of Spain.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IN 1995, when I visited the Laos capital Vientiane, it was a sleepy place; a quiet low rise French colonial town on the banks of the Mekong, a listless, aimless, but charming mix of Soviet-style socialist monuments, Buddhist temples and Provencal town houses.…