Search Results for: South Africa

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA and KEITH NUTHALL
THE GOVERNMENT of Sri Lanka is embarking on a comprehensive survey of the country’s clay resources as demand grows thanks to an official policy of promoting a home-grown ceramics industry, which is already the largest mineral-based sector in this south Asian country.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
*A supermarket boom in sub-Saharan Africa is raising food production and distribution standards, which many small farmers cannot meet, said the UN’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). It called for the funding of cooperatives, micro-loans and training, especially in South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTERNATIONAL scientists coordinated by the Munich-based Max Planck Institute for chemistry has discovered evidence of environmentally damaging high pollution levels over the Mediterranean Sea. They believe high levels of sulphate and soot particles in the troposphere could reduce evaporation of the sea and reduce the amount of rainfall in the Middle East and north Africa.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
PEPSI Co India Holdings is reorganising its management structure, basing it on five regionally based markets: north, east, west, south and central. Said a Pepsi official: “The organisation structure in the market units is being reconfigured to reflect geographic continuity and tap new market opportunities.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HALF-HEARTED efforts by European Union Member States to impose controls on shabby shipping have been blamed for the disastrous sinking of the ill-named Prestige oil tanker, off Galicia, Spain. Placing on record their disgust at the environmental tragedy, the Council of Europe’s environment committee deplored “the negligence of governments and their lack of any real determination to provide themselves with the means of preventing such disasters – or at least minimising their impact.”…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is lending the Russian subsidiary of IKEA US$100 million to finance Russia’s first combined mega-shopping and entertainment complex. It will be built on the outskirts of Moscow and will be Russia’s largest shopping mall, covering 170,000 square metres.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, in London, PHILIP FINE, in Montreal, and MATTHEW BRACE, in Sydney

WITH a new crackdown on counterfeiting being prepared by the

European Commission, some industry watchers will be surprised to hear that soft drinks is one the sectors that Brussels thinks needs close attention.…

BY RICHARD HURST
THE MANAGING Director of Zimbabwe Platinum has welcomed several incentives recently introduced by the Zimbabwean government that are designed to assist the platinum group metals industry develop in the country.

Roy Pitchford, managing director of Zimbabwe Platinum said that he was confident that investors would have a safe return on investments despite the political and economic uncertainty surrounding the rule of president Robert Mugabe.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
OPPORTUNITIES for British and other European Union (EU) electricity power companies to participate in the reconstruction and development of war-damaged electricity systems in the Balkans have been opened up by the signing of an agreement to bring the systems into the EU’s regulatory orbit.…

BY RICHARD HURST
A BOOM in the number of mine deaths in South Africa following the industry’s recent expansion has sparked action by the chairman of the country’s National Union of Mineworkers. Noting that the worst hit sectors appear to be the gold and platinum mining industries, Peter Bailey said: “General thinking within the industry seems to be that the loss of a life is normal and expected.…