At midday, the JSE was still firm, but was a tad lower than its strong opening this morning as the financial index started to pull back. At 12.01pm, the all-share index was 0,98% better as resources added 1,94% and the platinum-mining index climbed 1,20%. However, the gold-mining index was off 0,64%.
Don’t you just hate it when they take something you love and change it for the worse? Henry Ford didn’t upgrade his Model T by reverting to a steam engine, and nobody tries to build wide-body jetliners with propeller engines any more, so why did Hyundai South Africa take that lovely six-speed manual gearbox out of its Tiburon 2,7 and replace it with an auto — a four-speed, on top of it all?
On the edge of the world’s biggest salt desert, villagers optimistically scrawl ”salt for sale” signs on their mud-brick homes. In backyards, mountains of the stuff are heaped like year-round snow drifts. But mining salt is no longer the only way to survive in this cold, arid corner of south-western Bolivia.
Braving a biting wind in the remote Falkland Islands, tourists comb through trenches and battlefields from the British-Argentine war of 1982, finding weathered combat boots and tubes of toothpaste. These visits to see the scene to contemplate the tragedy of war — 904 people died in 73 days after Argentina tried to reclaim the South American islands from Britain — have given a big boost to tourism in the Falklands.
Six firemen died on Sunday while trying to bring raging fires in Mpumalanga under control, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry said on Monday. The department’s commercial manager Kim Weir said five firefighters died after they could not get their vehicle away from the front of the fire.
Only the over-zealous supporters of Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates will say that their teams can challenge for the league, or anything else, after their disappointing displays in the Vodacom Challenge in which both Soweto clubs lost to English Premiership club Tottenham Hotspur.
Director Michelangelo Antonioni, one of the last great figures in Italian cinema, has died at the age of 94, Ansa news agency reported July 31, quoting his family. Antonioni, who made only about 20 films, died at his home on July 30, the report said.
The Palestinian doctor who was held in Libyan custody along with five Bulgarian nurses on charges they infected hundreds of children with HIV, has described in detail how they were tortured during their eight-year ordeal. Ashraf Alhajouj (38) said he was beaten, held in cages with police dogs and given electric shocks.
Nkosi Johnson, the South African child who melted the hearts of millions when he spelt out the reality of living with Aids, is to be immortalised in a movie that producers hope will help once again raise awareness about the syndrome. The film is to be shot in South Africa at a date still to be set.
South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Sunday his government may cut tariffs on some imported equipment and goods in a bid to boost the manufacturing sector. Mbeki said a healthier manufacturing sector was critical to the government’s efforts to narrow the country’s trade deficit.