The battle for the soul of empowerment group Foundation of African Business and Consumer Services (Fabcos) moves to the Johannesburg High Court on Friday. The court battle is the latest chapter in a month-long battle over allegations of breaches in corporate governance. It follows a disputed resolution, which endorsed Fabcos’s investment arm Fabvest’s sale of 15,5-million shares
The cellphone and financial service sectors are in for a shake-up following the entry of Virgin into both markets. Virgin launched its mobile offering on Thursday and next week will see the unveiling of its credit cards. Virgin Mobile CEO Sajeed Sacranie says help is on the way for consumers who are fed up with South Africa’s existing mobile operators.
With mud spattered over a dress that looks like a selection from the cheap Chinese imports so readily available in Zimbabwe today, Griffin Chawatama bends over a home-made metal bowl, sifting through the crushed rock for gold flakes. Chawatama is one of hundreds of illegal gold panners engaged in a cat-and-mouse battle with the police since descending in Shurugwi last May.
India and China have signed an agreement to resume trade across the Himalayas along an ancient artery of the Silk route that has been blocked for 44 years. Giant warehouses and roads have been constructed on both sides of the 4 500m Nathu La pass, which once accounted for 80% of the border trade between the two neighbours.
When Venezuelan trade union officials attacked the ”dictator”, Hugo Chavez, his popularity leapt.
When he was 11, Ben Bernanke, the spelling champ from South Carolina, was within a whisker of appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show. Back in 1965, this was a big deal. But Bernanke couldn’t remember how many ”i”s there were in edelweiss and missed the televised national final by one mark. For Bernanke, it proved a minor setback on the road from boy prodigy to chairperson of the Federal Reserve.
Spanish television cameras frequently capture images of undocumented African immigrants flocking to the Canary Islands. Crowded into wooden fishing boats or disembarking with the help of Red Cross workers, the young men look impassively into the cameras, as if refusing to yield the secret of the other world they come from.
Embarrassingly for President Thabo Mbeki, his Sudanese counterpart, Omar al Bashir, chose the occasion of the South African leader’s visit to Khartoum to issue his most fiery rejection yet of the deployment of United Nations peacekeepers in Darfur. He might have been reacting to reports that Mbeki had come to the Sudanese capital to add to the arm-twisting.
Samke Lozondi leads his dog, Rocky, on to the sports field of Mpophomeni township school, 20km from Howick, KwaZulu-Natal. He has trouble restraining the three-year-old Rocky from going over to sniff the white Jack Russell that is barking to their left. ”I got him as a puppy, but he just keeps on growing,” says the young owner as he strokes his black and bristle-haired companion that already stands level with his chest.
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