Unlisted mobile services provider Cell C on Wednesday reported a 23% rise in net profits to R199,3-million for the six months ended June. Jeffrey Hedberg, new Cell C CEO, commented: "While certain key performance indicators reflect that we are moving in the right direction, I am not pleased with our performance over the first six months of 2006."
Rolling mass action by South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) and other affiliates of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has been scheduled for Friday September 1 as a show of solidarity with the cleaning sector, "whose conditions of work are characterised by low wages and poor working conditions", Satawu said on Wednesday.
The country’s biggest short-term insurer, Santam, on Wednesday reported a 16% decline in headline earnings to R583-million for the six months to the end of June. This equates to headline earnings per share of 498 cents against 599 cents for the previous comparable half-year.
Media group Caxton and CTP Publishers on Wednesday reported a 13,5% increase in headline earnings per share from 69 cents to 109 cents for the year to the end of June. Turnover for the 12 months grew by 8,2% from R3,2-billion to R3,5-billion. The group declared a dividend of 45 cents per share.
Centre Jean de Villiers is in the South African team to play New Zealand in Pretoria on Saturday but the Springboks were hit with another serious injury blow on Wednesday. Loose forward Juan Smith injured a left thigh muscle in practice on Wednesday and was ruled out of Saturday’s Test.
A previously unknown militant group in Gaza claimed responsibility on Wednesday for the kidnapping nine days ago of two Fox journalists and demanded the United States release ”Muslim prisoners” within 72 hours. ”Release what you have, and we will release what we have,” the ”Holy Jihad Brigades” said in a statement.
A police director of the South African Police Service (SAPS) who survived a car accident two years ago was killed in a hit-and-run accident in Kwamhlanga, Mpumalanga, police said on Wednesday. Director Kelly Chilli (41) was knocked down by a car on Monday, Commissioner Afrika Khumalo said in statement.
A would-be robber was arrested after he tried to hold up his local town hall, mistaking it for a bank, Austrian police said on Wednesday. Wearing a mask and waving a toy pistol, the unemployed man burst into the town hall in the village of Poggersdorf, southern Austria, and shouted: ”Hold-up, hold-up!”
On Thursday the Constitutional Court will hear an application on whether life partners in a same-sex relationship may inherit intestate estates as though they were spouses. The court’s senior registrar, Martie Stander, said on Wednesday that the case of Mark Gory versus Daniel Gerhardus Kolver and others was due to be heard on Thursday.
Burundi’s government has evidence linking a former president to an alleged plot to assassinate his successor and overthrow the government, a public prosecutor said on Wednesday. Domitien Ndayizeye was arrested on Monday, joining more than a half dozen people, including two former high-ranking officials and a dissident rebel, already jailed on suspicion of involvement in the plot.