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They are due back in Britain by the end of the week.Yesterday’s demonstration was organised by the African National Congress Women’s League outside the magistrates’ court in the town of Barberton in Mpumalanga province where two of the men accused of the gang-rape appeared in court. Sipho Mbokane and Zimbabwean Michael Dube are accused of murder, rape, abduction and armed robbery. The pair, with Eric Msibi and Willie Mgweneya, are to appear before the regional court later.Thoko Mabena, the ANCWL chairwoman, said local people could not allow crimes involving tourists to continue. She added: “These type of people must not get bail and should be given harsh sentences … By killing and attacking tourists they are making us lose jobs.”Last month, Diana Conway, 59, from Wiltshire, was shot dead and her husband, Jon, 55, a retired Army major, seriously injured during a robbery in their hotel at Pilgrims Rest, near the Kruger park.Four hundred thousand Britons have visited South Africa this year, a 19 per cent increase on the year before.

The boom is due to a combination of tourists avoiding some countries because of the 11 September attacks, the low value of the rand, cheaper air fares and South Africa’s stunning wildlife and beaches.. A United Nations worker who won her case for unfair dismissal after she blew the whistle on an alleged prostitution racket involving her colleagues in Bosnia was awarded more than £100,000 in compensation yesterday. A few days later, she was demoted and moved away from human rights work. In April last year she was dismissed.DynCorp denied the claim, saying she had been sacked for falsifying time sheets But the tribunal said there was little evidence for this.. The Bush administration is stepping up pressure on Saudi Arabia to crack down on the financing of international terrorism – a step likely to worsen already strained ties between the US and the kingdom. The Saudis would be pressed to act even if there was not enough evidence against an individual to convict him in a court of law. The US, the Post said, has drawn up a list of nine suspected financiers of al-Qa’ida.

Seven are Saudis.Critics claim the Bush administration has ducked confronting the Saudis head-on in order not to alienate its biggest single oil supplier before a possible war with Iraq.. National Grid Transco, the owner and operator of the electricity and gas supplier, told investors yesterday it would exceed the cost savings target of £100m set when the company was created. The group’s cash flow has increased 42 per cent to £1.2bn.National Grid Transco (NGT) was formed from the £11.5bn acquisition of Lattice, the gas distribution network owner, by National Grid, the electricity supplier. The merger was completed last month and Mr Urwin said it had gone so smoothly, the £100m target would be surpassed by the end of 2004.Cutting costs helped the company outperform in a market that is subject to strict regulations. Analysts at JP Morgan believe the group can improve its cost savings by £30m more than the original target, and believe even this could be a conservative estimate. “NGT continues to offer high yet regulated and defensive earnings growth and we believe it should trade at a premium to the sector, rather than the current discount of 5 per cent,” Caroline Randall at JP Morgan said. “By any standards this is a good set of results that give a clear picture of the value created in the mergers,” Mr Urwin said.”Because of the seasonal nature of our business, it is important to look ahead and all our businesses are trading in line with expectations,” he added.Mr Urwin said the group had suffered from a warm spring that had hampered demand in the Transco division, where operating profits fell by £15m to £178m.

The group receives 80 per cent of its revenues from the second half of the year. Estimates for its full-year profits are put at over £2bn, with cash flows rising to £3bn. Shares in NGT rose 2 per cent to close at 440.5p yesterday.The group had less positive news on its pension funds, which have not escaped the falls in stock market values.Lattice’s pension fund has moved to a £669m deficit at the end of October from a £261m surplus at the end of March. The deficit in the National Grid fund has widened to £202m from £36m.. The PowderJect board and its leading shareholders rejected the proposal and said yesterday that all talks had been terminated.The share price dived more than 20 per cent in the wake of the announcement but later recovered to close down 43p, or 10 per cent, at 367.5p.Paul Drayson, PowderJect’s founder and chief executive, said the informal offer represented only a small premium to the share price at the close of play on Monday – it was just 10 per cent – and would still have to be confirmed after due diligence.”Any takeover of the company has to reflect the excellent first-half results and the announcement that Wyeth [a big competitor] is withdrawing from the flu vaccine market, which gives us an excellent opportunity to capitalise on. PowderJect is not going to be sold on the cheap,” he said.The leak of Chiron’s takeover approach failed to spark an auction for PowderJect, even though at least two other companies had previously indicated their interest. Shire Pharmaceuticals, which had made clear its interest in bidding for the company, has since ousted its chief executive and decided to focus on US acquisitions..