International countries are angling for South Africa’s skilled workers — with the country’s financial services sector one of the first waters where global recruitment companies are casting their nets. Jocelyn Rowe, a British-based recruitment company for the financial services sector, said 19 800 new financial services jobs opened up in the City of London in August.

General Pervez Musharraf’s strategy for survival has finally become clear, after months of political turmoil in Pakistan. He plans to quit as chief of the army staff, before taking the presidential oath — but only after he has been re-elected by the outgoing parliament.

The middle-class Avenues area on the northern peripheries of Harare’s city centre is a residential and commercial office zone with stark contradictions. One minute the sound of gunshots fills the morning air as police exchange fire with robbers; the next, church bells are tolling and harmonic voices are heard as women sing hymns in church and well-dressed middle-aged men and women walk to their offices.

The ANC national executive committee decided in 2004 that the Merafong municipality be moved from Gauteng to North West. All subsequent public participation processes were, in effect, doomed from the start, court papers claim. These contentions were made in the Constitutional Court by Khutsong residents challenging President Thabo Mbeki to reverse the decision to incorporate the cross-border municipality of Merafong into North West.

The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund is hoping to build a children’s hospital in Johannesburg to provide specialist care for children from across Africa. The proposed hospital will complement the multimillion-rand development of a health precinct already under way in Hillbrow, which is part of Johannesburg’s R2-billion inner-city regeneration project.