SOUTH AFRICA

Ford Motor Co will focus on small, low-cost cars in India to make the country a manufacturing hub for Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, the head of its Indian operations said, as it races to catch up with global rivals in the fast-growing market.

One of the largest annual technical conferences, South by Southwest (SXSW), will begin Friday, March 9 and last until Sunday, March 18. Here is a full list of the SXSW 2012 music lineup for South by Southwest from March 13-18.

Impala Platinum said on Monday that the world's largest platinum mine had restarted as planned.

Gas prices are a potent weapon in an election year. TransCanada Corp's proposed $7-billion Keystone XL pipeline, which would move 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta, Canada, to the Texas Gulf, has suddenly become an inalienable part in the election rhetoric.

South Africa's Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. said Friday an illegal strike at its key Rustenburg operation has now cost it 120,000 ounces in lost platinum group metals production, which equates to 2.4 billion rand ($322 million) in lost revenue.

Obama is concerned that a military strike on Iran by Israel might make Tehran more of a sympathetic figure to some countries

Gas prices have risen to above $4 per gallon in many parts of the United States, sending economists into a tizzy about its impact on consumer spending, consumer confidence and the effects it will have on the housing market.

Julius Malema was expelled from the African National Congress, South Africa's ruling political party. The controversial and polarizing Malema, who was the president of the ANC's Youth League, was kicked out of the organization that brought him fame for indiscipline.

The probability of a sharp global slowdown has eased due to recent policy measures adopted in the euro zone to tackle its debt crisis, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday, but it warned risks to world growth remain squarely to the downside.

With victory over Italy, it looks like Jurgen Klinsmann is building the United States in the right direction.

If it were a country, Apple’s market value would put it between oil-rich Iran ($480 billion in gross domestic product) and tech powerhouse Taiwan ($505 billion GDP).

Impala Platinum, the world's second-largest platinum producer, said on Wednesday that it would not exit Zimbabwe despite the demands being made by the government that it hand over majority stakes in its local operations to Zimbabweans.

A Zimbabwean minister launched a verbal attack on Impala Platinum Chief Executive David Brown, saying on Wednesday he was sick and tired of the mining group's failure to comply with local black ownership laws.

Kobe Bryant is the star of a new Nike Italy ad campaign, featuring a host of soccer stars, as the man brought in to help put an end to vigilantes overtaking the city of Milan.

Korean Pop (KPop) has been making headlines recently as the music phenomenon expands beyond Asia and attracts a Western fan base of screaming teenage boys and girls. Recently, the cable channel tvN conducted a poll, asking 150 foreign students from 20 countries which KPop idol they think is the sexiest.

Impala Platinum , the world's second-largest platinum producer, said on Tuesday the costs of an illegal strike at its key Rustenburg operation in South Africa have reached 100,000 ounces and a loss of income of 2 billion rand ($263.66 million).

The technology sector is slowly growing in Kenya, but this weekend a misplaced anchor near the port of Mombasa has damaged high-speed connectivity in East Africa.

Gold prices fell 1 percent on Monday, in line with the euro, stocks and other commodities, as worries over the euro zone debt crisis and the impact of high crude oil prices on the fledgling economic recovery fuelled risk aversion.

Former South African President Nelson Mandela was discharged from hospital on Sunday after a keyhole abdominal examination showed there was nothing seriously wrong with the 93-year-old anti-apartheid leader, the government said.

The world's major emerging economies on Saturday rejected the tradition that an American automatically is selected to head the World Bank and they will look at putting forward their own candidate for the open job.

The world's major emerging economies on Saturday rejected the tradition that an American automatically is selected to head the World Bank and they will look at putting forward their own candidate for the open job.