A broker must repay two pensioners more than R600Â 000 that they lost when investment entity Leaderguard went insolvent, said the Office of the Ombud for Financial Services Providers on Friday. The ombud found that the pensioners, in their 70s, were not properly advised of the volatile nature of the financial product.
Zimbabwe and Angola have failed to sign a Southern African Development Community (SADC) protocol aligning its finance and investment policies with its objectives. ”Some countries first need the approval of their Parliament,” SADC chairperson and Lesotho Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili said on Friday.
Workers interviewed by the Mail & Guardian this week generally supported the idea that the South African Communist Party should field its own candidates in elections, while expressing growing impatience with the ruling African National Congress. The M&G survey followed an SACP central committee meeting at the weekend, where party leaders discussed the option of going it alone in elections.
The ”samoosa file” is set to return to haunt the South African government when the case of missing Pakistani national Khalid Rashid returns to court in eight days’ time. The file belonging to the Home Affairs Department’s attorney, Vas Soni, mysteriously found its way into a food hamper belonging to a friend of Rashid’s flamboyant lawyer, Zehir Omar, at an earlier court hearing.
The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, which extended the range of health practitioners able to conduct abortions, was declared invalid by the Constitutional Court on Thursday on the grounds that Parliament had not sufficiently involved the public in drafting the Bill.
Hezbollah handed out bundles of cash on Friday to people whose homes were wrecked by Israeli bombing, consolidating the Iranian-backed group’s support among Lebanon’s Shi’ites and embarrassing the Beirut government. ”This is a very, very reasonable amount. It is not small,” said Ayman Jaber (27).
Cellphone giant Vodacom has withdrawn a claim that it offers the lowest call rate in South Africa, following a challenge by competitor Cell C. The Advertising Standards Authority said it had been asked to rule on an advertisement for Vodacom’s new monthly packages, which claimed: ”Lowest call rates in South Africa. Calls from 90c per minute or 1,5c per second.”
A bomb threat scrawled on a sick bag caused a British passenger plane from London to Egypt to be diverted to southern Italy on Friday, but police said it appeared to be a false alarm. ”The alarm has been called off,” said Brindisi border police chief Salvatore de Paolis.
Two police reservists and five other suspects were arrested on Friday on the R101 near Hammanskraal where they were apparently planning to rob a truck, police said. Spokesperson Inspector Katlego Mogale said Hammanskraal police spotted the men next to the road early on Friday and on closer inspection found police equipment and unlicensed firearms in their possession.
The National Council Against Smoking (NCAS) has welcomed a landmark United States court finding that the tobacco industry has lied for decades about the harmful effects of smoking in order to protect its profits. NCAS director Dr Yussuf Saloojee said the judgement had exposed the ”rotten core” at the heart of the tobacco industry.