Standard Bank has launched a new style investment product, known as a discount share instalment, that is designed to provide investors with a simple, low-cost alternative to buying shares directly in the market. The product is designed to mimic the movement of a range of leading South African shares without having to pay the full purchase price upfront.
South Africa needs to improve communications to dispel misconceptions among potential foreign investors about government’s black economic empowerment (BEE) programme, President Thabo Mbeki said on Sunday. Briefing the media after the seventh presidential International Investment Council meeting in Cape Town, he said there was an imbalance between the perceptions and the reality of South Africa among some abroad.
Military police are investigating claims that British soldiers mutilated the bodies of Iraqi insurgents after a firefight last month near the southern Iraqi town of Majar al Kabir. The allegations are contained in official death certificates written by Dr Adel Salid Majid, the director of the hospital in Majar al Kabir, on May 15, the day after the battle.
A 30-year-old woman was arrested on Saturday after she was caught by her mother apparently trying to strangle her four-month-old baby girl in Sharpeville, south of Johannesburg, police reported. Captain Nthabiseng Mazibuko said on Sunday the woman was visiting her mother’s house in Sharpeville with her daughter.
The controversial United States attorney Ed Fagan is to sue South African President Thabo Mbeki, former president Nelson Mandela and eight multinational companies for ”siding with industry against the people” in the exploitation of natural resources.
Sustainable development reports are fundamentally different from other forms of corporate reporting in that they deal with the performance of a company or organisation in three key areas — environmental, social and financial. How do you make sure that your sustainable development report is a document that is read and kept? <i>Earthyear</i> dispenses some tips on the art of information.
"Before the Afghan war there was nothing like this. It only began when [Ronald] Reagan and the Saudis starting sending jihadis to Peshawar. Before that the Pushtuns loved Sufism." The US and Britain are straining to shore up a hated autocracy, argues author William Dalrymple.
It is 2010 and tens of thousands of visitors descend upon Cape Town not only to watch the football but to view the glory of the city and its wondrous mountain. To the shock of those who have come for the first time, the mountain appears to be no more then a residential theme park. This may well have been the position had the Supreme Court of Appeal not delivered a ground-breaking judgement recently.
Suddenly, the favoured way of talking about South Africa’s poor and marginalised is to call them members of the ”second economy”. Politicians and those aligned with the government now frequently refer to a modern, wealthy formal ”first economy”. The first is then contrasted with the second. The trouble with such dualism is that its use is limited and — because it may be imperfectly understood or misused — dangerous.
Bafana Bafana had a day they would rather forget at the Kumasi Sports Stadium on Sunday where they were easily beaten 3-0 by a rampant Ghana on a bumpy pitch. Ghana lead 1-0 at half-time. It was the Black Stars first win over South Africa. This was the sixth time the teams have played each other.