The inefficient use of the internet by local tourism marketers will lead to business loss, researchers said on Thursday. Ian Kruger, director of BlueRiverStone, a company that recently completed a research into South African tourism websites, said the local market was not taking full advantage of the functions of internet marketing.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy named Francois Fillon as Prime Minister on Thursday, banking on the moderate conservative’s negotiating skills to push through sweeping reforms in the face of union resistance. On his first full day in office, Sarkozy held a breakfast meeting with Fillon before confirming the appointment of the 53-year-old.
Bubonic plague has killed nine people in northern Tanzania since February, a regional official said on Thursday. The plague outbreak was first reported in one village in late February, but has since spread to six others and infected 72 people, Salash Toure, a medical official in Manyara region, near the Kenyan border, said.
Remarks by Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana that lawyers are ”milking” labour disputes and prolonging cases are ”unjustified and biased”, a labour lawyer said on Thursday. ”It is disingenuous to blame lawyers for the problems which arise at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration,” said Rod Harper.
The South African Cabinet has dismissed as ”misleading” media reports that the government has rejected the African Peer Review Mechanism country review report on South Africa, government communications head Themba Maseko said on Thursday.
Toyota on Thursday launched what it called its most advanced hybrid vehicle yet as part of a drive to roll-out more eco-friendly cars that have helped it become the world’s top-selling automaker. ”Without protecting the environment, there is no future,” Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe said as he showed off the new sedan.
When South African Grant Ruffel and his Argentinian friend Gaston Bernal bought the <i>Zanj</i> sailing yacht in 1998, their main objective was to set up surf charters. Little did the two skippers know that six eventful years later they would be combing the bottom of the ocean, looking for ancient shipwrecks, lost treasures and artefacts.
Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski revealed on Thursday that he doesn’t have a bank account and instead hands his salary over to his mother. "I still don’t have a bank account," the 57-year-old conservative premier said in an interview with the weekly news magazine, <i>Wprost</i>. "I’m not joking. I keep my money in Mum’s account," he said.
The JSE was virtually unchanged at noon on Thursday as investors juggled a sharp retreat in commodity prices and the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s record-breaking performance overnight. At noon, the all-share index was up just 0,07%. Resources gained 0,21%, the platinum mining index edged up 0,15% but the gold mining index gave up 0,08%.
Britain-based brewer SABMiller said on Thursday that net profit climbed by almost 15% during its fiscal year, but gains were limited by a disappointing performance in North America. SABMiller said that net profit increased by 14,5% to $1,649-billion in the year to March 31 from the same period 12 months earlier, according to an official earnings release.