Foreign interest in the South African short-term insurance market, especially the corporate sector, is very active. Chicago-based Aon Corporation bought a stake in local brokerage Lumleys more than a decade ago, the Willis Group took a stake in Mark Floyd and Associates, as did Marsh in CT Bowring.
Insurance claims have been soaring over the past two years, while premiums have softened. That’s an unsustainable business model, but was facilitated by two factors: the equities bull market that meant that investment returns subsidised premium income and increased competition in the short-term insurance market.
Government’s drive to use cheap electricity as a development tool has cost R142-billion, enough to build two giant coal-fired power stations. Cheap power — government has kept electricity price increases at below the rate of inflation for more than a decade — has also seen industry being given preferential rates.
When she appeared in a New York court on Monday, author JK Rowling invoked a time-honoured, if largely mythical, notion of British reserve. ”I really don’t want to cry,” she said, ”because I’m British.” In this one utterance she managed to honour and breach the custom simultaneously. The whole point of the stiff upper lip is that you’re not supposed to let on that you even feel like crying. In fact, Rowling has a history of tearfulness.
As many as 300 000 people may have died in the five-year conflict in Darfur, a dramatic increase over earlier estimates of 200 000, a top United Nations official said on Tuesday. Sudan’s UN ambassador, Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem, said the figure was grossly exaggerated.
Former South Africa all-rounder Shaun Pollock will play for English county Durham in the Twenty20 Cup this season, the club said on Wednesday. Pollock, who retired from international cricket in February having played in 108 Test matches and more than 300 one-day internationals, will join up with Durham in June.
Soaring food prices are a ”massacre” of the world’s poor and are creating a global nutritional crisis, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said on Tuesday, calling it a sign that capitalism is in decline. His comments came only hours after the United Nations World Food Program called more expensive food a ”silent tsunami”.
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Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille was emerging as a person who would go to extremes to cover up the truth, a former member of the DA said on Tuesday. ”[She is] a person who criticises the judiciary and the media because their duties do not fit her political agenda,” Kobus Brynard, a Western Cape MPL for the African National Congress, said.
South Africa midfielder Steven Pienaar has agreed a permanent move to Everton, the Premier League club announced on Tuesday. The playmaker has impressed since moving from Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund on a season-long loan last summer, resulting in the Toffees agreeing to a three-year deal with the player.