European travel agencies are ceding a rising share of their business to the internet, as consumers grow accustomed to less personal service but more flexibility. Thirty-six percent of tour operators in the European Union offer online reservations, as well as 40% of package operators and a full 62% of hotels, according to figures compiled by the European Commission.
The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) has elected its first black provincial leader in Gauteng. John Moodey was elected unopposed at the party’s provincial congress in Benoni on the weekend. ”My aim is for the party to remain relevant and to transform ourselves from an opposition party into a viable government-in-waiting,” he said.
Morocco said on Monday it was investigating whether an overnight blast was a militant suicide attack after a man with explosives under his clothes was blown up and three others were wounded at a Casablanca internet cafe. The Sunday night blast occurred in the commercial capital’s Sidi Moumen slum, home to 13 suicide bombers who killed 32 people in Casablanca in 2003.
The United States called on Sunday for the immediate release of Zimbabwean opposition leaders detained after riot police thwarted a planned mass protest against President Robert Mugabe’s government. The US embassy reported that one person was killed, ”a number” were injured and 100 people were arrested, including Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.
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The 2007 Cricket World Cup, the first to be held in the Caribbean, was opened in Jamaica on Sunday in a three-hour, -million opening ceremony. Sir Garfield Sobers, one of the greatest players the game has ever known, declared the 16-team, 49-day, 51-match tournament open.
Children infected with HIV at birth are surviving into adolescence, overturning the assumption that virtually all die before the age of five, doctors working in Zimbabwe will reveal this week. But because the children’s growth has been stunted they face particular difficulties as they enter puberty, which are not being tackled.
Police in the cash-for-honours inquiry are examining details of meetings attended by Lord Levy, Labour’s chief fundraiser, at which the question of political honours may have been discussed, The Guardian has learned. Detectives are investigating whether Levy later suggested to colleagues that they should not draw attention to his involvement in the discussions because of the fevered atmosphere surrounding the inquiry.
Reports suggesting that Iran has sought Saudi help in mediating its nuclear and other disputes with the Bush administration are wide of the mark. When President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad travelled to Riyadh at the weekend, he had a wholly different object in view: wrecking the ostensibly anti-Iranian coalition of "moderate" Arab states, plus Israel, painstakingly assembled by the United States in recent months.
Small businesses have a disproportionately high failure rate in their first three years of operation. While franchises may be less likely to fail, they’re certainly not immune. "The three major reasons are: the wrong location, an ill-suited franchisee and an unproven concept," said Anita du Toit of FranchisingĂ‚Â Plus.
Diego Pitzalis has owned and run a Fego’s coffee shop in Rosebank for the past eight years. He shares his experience of franchising with the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>.