Growth in South African household spending slowed to 7,5% year-on-year in the first quarter from 7,75% in the last quarter of last year, while debt reached record levels, the central bank said on Thursday. A household spending boom has contributed to high economic growth of 5% last year, but it has also added to inflationary pressures.
Photographer Liam Lynch has spent years hounding South Africa’s radical rockers. Now his images are on exhibition, writes Lloyd Gedye
South African Solidarity union said on Thursday it had declared a dispute with Kumba Iron Ore, the first legal step towards a strike, after the company made a final wage offer of 8% against the union’s demand of 12,5%. Solidarity spokesperson Reint Dykema said in a statement the next step will be to ask the CCMA mediating body to appoint a facilitator.
Police in India have charged a three-year-old boy for allegedly leading a group of rioters and firing at security personnel, the toddler’s uncle said on Thursday. The incident dates back to a clash in the eastern state of Bihar between villagers and police in January, when officers were pelted with stones and shot at, Dhruv Kumar Jha said.
Police investigating a string of petrol-bomb attacks in politically tense Zimbabwe claim they have been barred from pursuing their probe in South Africa, reports said on Thursday. Zimbabwe authorities claim members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change carried out the attacks.
The battle between the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the eThekwini municipality over controversial plans to rename several Durban streets and landmarks was adjourned on Thursday in the Durban High Court. The DA is asking the court to prevent the municipality from proceeding with the second phase of the renaming process to have the first phase reversed.
Social sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo that want to run your life for you are all the rage, but this shouldn’t distract from the strong growth of networks geared to special interests. When I wrote recently about the slowness of the digital revolution to hit the book world, I was hit by a shoal of letters listing stacks of sites not mentioned
Zimbabwe has set up a task force to monitor prices of basic goods and probe shortages fuelling the country’s runaway inflation, a Cabinet minister said Thursday. "The task force is being set up to monitor the prices [of goods] and their disappearance from the formal market," Industry and International Trade Minister Obert Mpofu said.
Riot police in Zambia arrested 49 students from the country’s biggest university in Lusaka who attempted to stage street protests against poor sanitation at their campus, police said on Thursday. ”Police arrested 15 female students and 34 males from the University of Zambia,” police spokesperson Chrispin Kapela said.