The taxi industry on Wednesday placed ”on hold” its participation in the government’s programme to replace old, unsafe taxis with safer vehicles. The South African National Taxi Council said it would not continue with the multibillion-rand taxi-recapitalisation programme as long as its concerns were not addressed.
South Africa is well positioned to weather the current global economic turmoil, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Wednesday. While a difficult set of challenges lay ahead, he was confident that ”our ship is strong [and] that we will weather the present storms that are raging worldwide”, he told the National Assembly.
The government will not abandon its inflation-targeting policy of between 3% and 6%, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Wednesday. ”Our adoption of inflation targeting in the late 1990s has enabled our economy to grow and to become more competitive,” he told the National Assembly. ”We cannot, at the first signs of stress, abandon our anchor,” Manuel said.
South Africa’s power situation has improved after a two-day crisis that threatened supplies to mines, state electricity firm Eskom said on Wednesday, but rolling cuts are set to continue. Eskom has been struggling to contain South Africa’s power crisis, the result of years of underspending on electricity generation capacity.
A former metro police officer told the Pretoria Regional Court on Wednesday how he had been victimised by Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride. Patrick Johnston was testifying in McBride’s drunken-driving trial. Speaking in Afrikaans, Johnston told the court how he had been victimised by McBride and how his boss had sworn at him on several occasions.
Serbia’s neighbours in Croatia, Hungary and Bulgaria dealt a blow to the Serb campaign to overturn Kosovo’s month-old independence on Wednesday by announcing they would recognise the new republic. In a joint statement issued in Zagreb, Budapest and Sofia, they said the decision was based on ”thorough consideration”.
The African National Congress (ANC) will not make its arms-deal report public, the ruling party reiterated on Wednesday. In a statement, the ANC said it noted a call in the media by the Congress of South African Trade Unions to have the outcome of its arms-deal report made public.
Microsoft and Intel said on Tuesday they are teaming with United States universities to unleash the mighty potential of multicore computer chips. A recent trend is to increase computing power but reduce electricity use and heat production by crafting multiple processors, or computer brains, into each chip.
British internet start-up Songkick launched on Wednesday with a vow to inspire digital-age music lovers to reclaim the joy of hearing bands play live in real-world venues. The London-based website debuts with a free online service that matches people’s tastes in music with the schedules of bands performing in the United States or Britain.
As the internet goes mobile and companies such as Apple and Google find cool ways to embrace the trend, mobile market leader Nokia is rewriting its product development rulebook. Instead of working in secrecy and isolation, it wants to start sharing.