The article "My night of hell at Jo’burg Gen" (May 25) Âcreates the false impression of a generally appalling hospital with uncaring and unprofessional staff. This is not what Johannesburg Hospital stands for. If a patient leaves our hospital feeling the care she or he received was less than satisfactory, writes Sagie Pillay.
Deutsche Telekom is investing $20-million in hotly tipped internet telephony start-up Jajah.com as the online communications industry continues its rapid growth. Jajah has already been backed by venture groups such as Sequoia Capital — the Silicon Valley company that was instrumental in the rise of Google, YouTube and PayPal — and Intel.
I must say that I am gobsmacked by the responses in these pages to a couple of observations I made in this column relating to the new Chinatown in Cyrildene, east Johannesburg. On reflection, I must have been losing it. I was guilty of becoming complacent, and writing as if regular readers were fully aware of my irreverent style. Bad mistake.
In a circular to its stakeholders, the organisation’s executive officers, Dorothy Brislin and Tsikani Mthembu, wrote: "Unless a rescue injection of funds occurs within the next few days, the board’s decision to liquidate FRU will proceed." By Tuesday, the pair had already made a desperate plea to Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan for urgent intervention to prevent liquidation.
At first glance Robert Zoellick, who George Bush nominated to be the next president of the World Bank, could not be more different than his predecessor, Paul Wolfowitz. While both men have been at the heart of Republican-dominated Washington for many years, with careers stretching back into the term of the current President Bush’s father, the two have widely differing personalities.
Farmers in East Africa are set to enter the lucrative international organic produce market after launching their own seal of quality for organic products. The farmers hope the new East African Organic Products Standard (EAOS) — launched at the East African Organic Conference in Dar es Salaam this week — will boost sales for struggling farmers in the region and give their produce an exclusivity they can market at premium prices.
The scrap has well and truly begun for the precious subscription broadcasting licences that the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) intends to issue. This week saw the launch of public hearings held by the regulator, which will allow it to whittle down the 18 applicants to those deserved few, who will be given an opportunity to make their fortune in the billion-rand pay-TV industry.
Now that the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Codes have taken over the job of encouraging companies to implement affirmative action, the Employment Equity Act should be scrapped. With it should go the Commission for Employment Equity.
Zimbabwe’s remaining foreign investors, who have chosen to ride out the world’s fastest economic decline, could see their patience rewarded with the seizure of at least half their assets if radicals in President Robert Mugabe’s government have their way. Empowerment Minister Paul Mangwana is set to push a new law through Parliament whose ”various measures will accelerate the implementation of the indigenisation”.
Sasol’s coal-to-liquid technology is making headlines from Johannesburg to Beijing and New York. It has scored big with the coal industry as a way for coal-rich countries such as the United States, China and South Africa to reduce their dependency on imported fuel from hotspots such as the Middle East and Nigeria.