Shares prices on the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) weakened again last week with sellers outweighing buyers as the festive holiday’s profit-taking begins.

The November-December period is traditionally a profit-taking period on most bourses around the world with investors cashing in their stocks.

However, for this year’s season, the cash-in began rather late as investors were still riding high on the high wave of renewed confidence creeping back into the markets with the recovery of the world and the Botswana economy.

“Bearish market conditions persisted on the local bourse much to [continue reading]

The United States former ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell, highlighted what he felt was former South African President Thabo Mbeki’s bias for Mugabe and ZANU PF during his mediation efforts in 2008.
On Sunday the WikiLeaks website released over 250 000 damaging documents made up of US diplomatic and intelligence reports from around the world. According to one confidential 2007 diplomatic report, Ambassador Dell said ‘Mbeki has always favored stability and in his mind this means a ZANU PF led GNU (Government of National Unity), with perhaps a few MDC additions.’

He continued by saying; ‘This solution is more likely to prolong than resolve the crisis and we must guard against letting Pretoria dictate an outcome which perpetuates the status quo at the [continue reading]

Johannesburg – Plans to create a one-stop border post between South Africa and Mozambique will advance with the opening of a single border post dedicated to the bus and minibus taxi industry, Business Day newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Chief executive of the Maputo Corridor Logistics Initiative (MCLI) Brenda Horne said the building of the single border facility for the passenger transport industry was complete and due to open imminently.

The facility will allow passengers to be processed by South African and Mozambique authorities at the same time, using a [continue reading]

More people have been deported from this country since President Ian Khama took over power in 2008, compared to the near two-decade era of former president, Sir Ketumile Masire.

During Masire’s 18 years in power, there were only 115 deportations, while under Khama, 404 people have been expelled from the country so far.

These figures emerged in Parliament last week although no names (presidents) were mentioned.

Parliament was told that 404 foreigners were deported from the country since April 2008 to March, 2010.

The Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Peter Siele said from April 1980 to March 1998, 115 persons were deported from the country. From April 1998 to March 2008, 790 were deported and 404 for the period April 2008 to March 2010. The minister stated that the deportations were made under [continue reading]

Cape Town – The South African government on Monday refused to comment on the publication of documents by whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

The website leaked hundreds of thousands of US embassy cables – with the first batch of it published on Sunday by global media.

In it, it was revealed that International Relations and Co-operations Minister Maite Nkoane-Mashabane referred to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe as a “crazy old man”.

When contacted by News24 for comment, international relations spokesperson Saul Molobi said: “It is the policy of this government not to comment on leaks.”

Government spokesperson Vusi Mona was unavailable for [continue reading]

Sechaba Brewery Holding’s dwindling sales volumes of alcohol beverages is not a reflection of lower intake of alcohol in Botswana as consumers have migrated to less expensive imports than home brews, managing director Hloni Matshela has said.

Briefing the media on the company’s interim results for the half-year ended 30 September 2010, Matshela said that due to the unfair implementation of the alcohol levy which has made imports more affordable than locally-produced alcoholic beverages, their market share and profits continues to slide while the expected increment in the alcohol levy will see more consumers desert KBL and BBL beverages but not necessarily stop alcohol consumption. “I believe for the alcohol levy to serve its intended purpose, it must affect all the sellers in the same way. For some time now, we have been engaging the government to make them understand that the implementation of the levy gives an unfair advantage to [continue reading]

There has been an angry reaction to Robert Mugabe’s planned attendance at a European Union (EU) summit in Libya next week, with the EU coming under fire for continuing to host a known human rights abuser.

Mugabe will be attending the EU-Africa summit in Tripoli next Monday, where ironically one of the issues to be discussed will be ‘good governance’. Under the main theme of Investment, Economic Growth and Job Creation, Heads of States and Governments will address key issues, like peace and security, climate change, regional integration and private sector development, infrastructure and energy, agriculture and food security, migration.

Mugabe has been officially invited to participate as a head of state, despite being the author of Zimbabwe’s economic, political and humanitarian destruction. It is his policies and [continue reading]

The Minister of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, Ponatshego Kedikilwe has told Parliament that there has been no tariff increase changes effected since the Water Sector Reforms were institutionalised through a Presidential directive last year.

Kedikilwe said the directive stipulated that following the transfer of water services from the Department of Water Affairs to Water Utilities, tariff levels that are applicable across the country will remain unchanged for the first year.

He said areas like Mogoditshane and Tlokweng will be considered for progressive adjustment with the prevailing Water Utilities Corporation rates for [continue reading]

Cape Town — African and European heads of state are expected to endorse plans for a high-level science policy dialogue between the two continents when they meet in Libya next week (29-30 November).

The agreement, which has already received support from African and European science ministers, could lead to them meeting regularly – bridging a perceived gap in relations between the two continents when it comes to the engagement of member states with science projects.

“We don’t have a senior dialogue between Europe and Africa like we have with the Gulf countries and South-East Asia,” said Fadila Boughanemi, an official in the European Commission’s research directorate.

“The idea is to establish such a [continue reading]

South African President Jacob Zuma arrived in the country Friday as part of endless regional efforts to diffuse political tensions that have paralysed the shaky coalition government. His visit came two days after Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai filed a High Court petition seeking to annul the unilateral appointments of provincial governors made by an increasingly intransigent Robert Mugabe.

Even as Zuma held meetings with the party leaders, political analyst John Makumbe predicted he would go back ‘with half-baked promises from Mugabe’ and the trip was just another ‘wild goose chase.’ Even the fact that Mugabe is the one who met Zuma at the airport sent out its own message. The mediation effort has been littered with deadlines set and deadlines not met and Mugabe has on most occasions reneged on promises, made even to his [continue reading]