When I find a good financial product I write about it because the media’s role should not just be to dish out dirt, but also to applaud when financial companies meet our needs. But I have to admit that two banks I have written about recently have let me down.
You would expect the man at the helm of a company responsible for the disappearance of hundreds of millions of rands of other people’s money at least to be a great fraudster. But in the case of the Mineworkers Provident Fund’s missing millions, J Arthur Brown may have just had a good eye for a weak system.
Last week’s right-wing spookstorie (scare story) about Nelson Mandela’s “death” revived a recurrent theme in the mythology of the Afrikaner far right. Rumours first swept the right that Mandela would die on September 13 2002. When this did not happen, the Boeremag hatched plans to kill him in a bomb explosion on October 11 2002.
The country’s biggest newspaper, the <i>Sunday Times</i>, is rumoured to be planning a new daily title, but is keeping tight-lipped. But media insiders say the project is well under way, with a launch possible as early as Easter. Sources say the new paper, to be titled the <i>Daily Times</i>, will be distributed free of charge to <i>Sunday Times</i> subscribers.
Coal may be Shanxi’s black gold, but it is the peasants of this north Chinese province who have to live with the consequences as their homes sink, water supplies dwindle and pollution worsens. Xiaoqinghe, a small market town perched on top of a hill in Shanxi, has a beautiful name that is somewhat at odds with reality.
The Zimbabwean Central Intelligence Organisation recently seized all unedited tapes of President Robert Mugabe’s exclusive birthday interview with state broadcaster ZBC after sensitive comments about the controversial succession issue were leaked. In a rare outburst, Mugabe had lashed out at his Vice-President, Joyce Mujuru, for demeaning him.
Crooked debt collectors and attorneys are pulling in close to R1-billion a year by overcharging often financially illiterate borrowers, estimates a company that helps employers rehabilitate debt-trapped employees. And there are fears that corruption in the debt-collection system will undermine the good intentions of the National Credit Act, which kicks in on June 1 this year.
The sudden upsurge in right-wing Afrikaner mobilisation and the purge of Somali traders from Port Elizabeth’s Motherwell township both underscore how far South Africa still has to travel in dealing with diversity and xenophobia to stem inter-group hatred and find the holy grail of non-racialism.
Mozambican marines rescued more than 1 700 people, including 900 children, from flooding in central Mozambique on Friday. The marines used eight boats to mount the rescue operation in the central town of Buzi in the province of Sofala, where at least 28 000 people have been affected by the floods.
Ten Western tourists feared kidnapped in Ethiopia are safe and well and have been in contact with their tour operator, Samson Teshome, head of Origins Ethiopia, told Agence France-Presse on Friday. ”One group has reappeared with 10 people,” said Teshome, refusing to give their nationalities. ”Their satphone was not working, that is why they couldn’t contact us.”