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/ 17 January 2007
Broadband internet access has become cheaper than dial-up for the first time, figures show. Consumers with a dial-up connection are now almost certain to make savings by switching to broadband, irrespective of whether they pay per minute or via a monthly fee for unlimited access, according to SimplySwitch.com, the price-comparison service.
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/ 17 January 2007
South Africa has again stressed that its defence force is over-stretched and is still considering troop contributions to an African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad told journalists in Pretoria on Wednesday that no decision has been made on possible troop contributions.
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/ 17 January 2007
Somalia’s Parliament voted on Wednesday to oust powerful speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, who fell out with the president and prime minister late last year after he made peace overtures to Islamists. ”The speaker is out,” Somali legislator Ali Basha told Reuters by phone from the Parliament, which is in a converted grain warehouse in the interim capital, Baidoa.
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/ 17 January 2007
Cape Town’s share of the considerable Fifa 2010 Soccer World Cup benefits depend entirely on the new Green Point Stadium, mayor Helen Zille warned on Wednesday. ”Residents, and specifically objectors to the stadium, must be quite clear about the choices we face,” she told a special council meeting.
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/ 17 January 2007
The Public Protector on Wednesday defended its decision not to investigate a matter that grew into South Africa’s first case in which a whistleblower received compensation for exposing corruption. The case involved the former deputy director general in the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, Mike Tshishonga.
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/ 17 January 2007
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has accused Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad of not giving ”an honest answer” to a parliamentary question. The question was whether the Presidency had commissioned a R1-million corporate sponsorship for author Ronald Suresh Roberts to write a book about President Thabo Mbeki. In a written reply, in November 2004, Pahad said it had not.
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/ 17 January 2007
Four South Africans abducted in Iraq a month ago are still alive, Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Aziz Pahad said on Wednesday. Pahad said the men’s captors had told negotiators they were safe and that negotiations to free them continue. ”Of course this is their word,” Pahad said, adding that there was no independent confirmation of the men’s health.
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/ 17 January 2007
Alice Coltrane, a jazz performer and composer whose late husband was saxophone legend John Coltrane, has died. She was 69. Coltrane died on January 12 of respiratory failure at West Hills Hospital and Medical Centre in West Hills, California, said Marilyn McLeod, her sister.
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/ 17 January 2007
South African retail sales growth accelerated to 12,3% year-on-year in November at constant prices, backing the case for a rate rise in February, official data showed on Wednesday. Retail sales rose by a downwardly revised 8,7% in October, while sales growth for the three months to November climbed to 11,5%, also at constant prices.
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/ 17 January 2007
Ashwell Prince, who scored his sixth Test hundred in South Africa’s win over Pakistan in Centurion, is now within touching distance of a place in the top ten of the LG International Cricket Council player rankings for Test batsmen. The left-hander has risen three spots to eleventh position, his highest-ever placing on the list, and is now breathing down the neck of teammate Jacques Kallis.