South Africa’s credit providers are racing to sign up clients before a new law makes it illegal for them to extend credit to consumers deemed unlikely to pay back the money. Lenders are resorting to mailing credit cards to prospective clients and offering them pre-approved loans high-pressure phone calls ahead of the June 1 introduction of the National Credit Act.
The pilot of a Kenya Airways plane that crashed in Cameroon this month decided to take off in stormy weather while other flights waited for conditions to improve, Cameroon’s civil aviation chief said on Tuesday. Cameroon has launched an investigation into the crash of the six-month-old Boeing 737-800.
Russia’s atomic energy agency said on Tuesday it has signed a deal to build a nuclear-research reactor in Burma, whose military rulers have been criticised by the West for repressive and undemocratic practices. The centre will include a 10MW nuclear reactor with low enriched uranium consisting of less than 20% uranium-235, the atomic energy agency, known as Rosatom, said.
The legislative framework underpinning South Africa’s labour market "is sound" and shall not be altered, South African Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana said on Tuesday. He was speaking in his budget vote in an extended public committee in the National Assembly.
Zimbabwean police have detained the lawyer of Briton Simon Mann, who is fighting his extradition to Equatorial Guinea, a colleague said on Tuesday. Law Society of Zimbabwe president Beatrice Mtetwa said that Mann’s lawyer, Jonathan Samkange, was picked up by police on Monday night for allegedly bringing a witness into the country under false pretences.
South Africa’s 18th Gay and Lesbian Pride celebrations will be held in the streets of Rosebank, Johannesburg, it was announced on Tuesday. The Johannesburg Pride is the largest gay and lesbian event on the continent, and celebrates South Africa’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex communities.
China promised on Tuesday to do more to strengthen Africa’s economic sinews even as the continent enjoys its fastest burst of growth in 30 years on the back of booming Chinese demand for oil and minerals. Central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said Beijing would redouble efforts to share the lessons of its economic take-off.
Pessimists who doubt South Africa’s ability to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup will have to ”eat their own words” in 2009 when all preparations for the event will be completed, Deputy Finance Minister Jabu Moleketi said on Tuesday. He said some people had ”targeted 2010” to reflect their negativity about South Africa and Africa.
A man checking for fire damage at a home he bought in a foreclosure auction walked into the living room and found the former owner’s mummified body sitting on the couch, Spanish police said on Tuesday. Coroners estimate the woman’s remains had been there since 2001.
Reducing the number of provinces from nine to four lines up with the African National Congress’s attempts to centralise the government and is therefore no surprise, the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) said on Tuesday. ”Efforts to make democracy easier or cheaper are ridiculous and defeat the object,” it said.