A lack of information is holding back the potential of cellphone banking to expand access to financial services to the unbanked population. This is one of the key conclusions of the FinScope Mobile Banking Pilot Survey, whose findings were released in Johannesburg on Thursday.
Zimbabwe accused opposition supporters on Thursday of waging a militia-style campaign of violence against the government, amid rising world condemnation of President Robert Mugabe’s latest crackdown on dissent. Police officials said three officers had been badly hurt in a petrol-bomb attack in the capital, Harare, late on Tuesday.
”Angel of Soweto” Jackie Maarohanye appeared briefly in a Soweto court on Thursday, later facing police who want to re-charge her in a kidnapping case from a year ago. Ithuteng Trust school principal Maarohanye and three others appeared in the Protea Magistrate’s Court on charges of kidnapping a Sowetan reporter and driver.
Ethiopia’s foreign minister on Thursday urged Somalis to support African Union peacekeepers deploying to boost a weak government in the face of deadly insurgency. This comes as Ethiopian troops scale down operations. ”I am urging the Somalis to work closely with AU troops to bring lasting peace,” Seyoum Mesfin said.
The European Union must substantially increase financial resources for research on a vaccine against HIV, which causes Aids, leading non-governmental activists say. Ann Katrin Akalin, spokesperson of the German Aids Foundation, says the EU is contributing only 6% of the world’s total public financing for research on a vaccine.
The government will never overlook qualified South Africans in preference to foreign skills in its ongoing drive for economic transformation, said Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana on Thursday. The minister said that ”while the government is trying to address disparities of the past and transform our economy, all South African citizens … are its first priority”.
The trend for young doctors and nurses to seek higher salaries and better working conditions, mainly in the West, is killing the healthcare sector in Ghana, a senior public servant said. ”It is the single most significant impact on healthcare delivery in this country,” Ghana Health Service head Agyeman Badu Akosah told Agence France-Presse in an interview.
South Africa on Thursday named a suspended player in their squad for an African Nations Cup qualifier in the latest in a series of public-relations howlers for the country’s football association. Germany-based defender Bradley Carnell was booked in South Africa’s last two qualifying matches and is suspended for next Saturday’s Group 10 match against Chad in Ndjamena.
If South Africa was not capable of hosting the 2010 World Cup, it would not have approached Fifa for the rights to host the event, the local organising committee (LOC) said on Thursday. LOC spokesperson Tim Modise said there were people who were sceptical about the country’s capabilities, especially in the media.
Microsoft opened its 15th TechFest to journalists last week, unveiling up to 100 innovations — some significant, but most of which will never appear in public. It was a wonderfully cosmopolitan event. There were 75 journalists from as far afield as the Russian Federation and Australia, with a sizeable contingent representing India.