The JSE was ensconced in positive territory in noon trade on Friday, with resources giant Anglo American — the bourse’s heaviest-weighted stock — roaring to a record high after the company reported record results. Relief that Thursday’s rate hike was in line with expectations and firmer global markets helped the bourse overall.
A leading business official has said Zimbabwe’s struggling industry looks set to recover after the central bank eased exchange controls to let exporters retain the bulk of their earnings in bank accounts. ”Give it another 12 months and we will be back on our feet,” said Callisto Jokonya, president of the main Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries.
As an ordained rainbow pessimist, last week’s aggravated pronouncements by President Mbeki sent my worst imaginings into a tailspin. As I read our president’s rousing "wake-up" speech to his ANC colleagues, a feeling of intense dismay slowly cloaked me. Here was I, content to go on feeding my racist prejudices from a seemingly endless smorgasbord.
”The anointing has stopped the camera from working,” a burly man in sunglasses, a dark pinstriped suit and driving a white BMW X5 told Mail & Guardian photographer Oupa Nkosi. In fact, the ”anointing” — the Pentecostal movement’s buzzword for God’s enabling power — had to be supplemented by mechanical and human muscle.
Many university faculties are scrambling to repair their reputations, after the Council on Higher Education accredited only seven of 23 master’s in education (MEd) programmes on offer in South Africa. The MEd is a crucial component of university education qualifications, providing a platform for schoolteachers seeking promotion, and for students aiming at an academic career.
By putting Thoko Didiza in charge of the Department of Public Works, President Thabo Mbeki elevated it from the portfolio where ministers go to retire, to one that is central in job creation and development. This was accentuated even further after the recent Cabinet lekgotla.
The miserable death of a 23-year-old domestic worker, Marie Rachel Kleinveld, in a Cape Town hospital last week has thrown a harsh spotlight on the labour practices of unregistered job agencies which lure poor rural women to the city on promises of work. Kleinveld, who fell ill, was locked away by the agency that recruited her and hospitalised too late to save her life.
Though their concerns are different, the new voices from Africa offer salutary correctives to those who care to listen, writes Maya Jaggi.
Arthur Lee, the eccentric singer/guitarist with influential 1960s rock band Love, has died in a Memphis hospital after a battle with leukemia, his manager said on Friday. He was 61. ”His death comes as a shock to me because Arthur had the uncanny ability to bounce back from everything, and leukemia was no exception,” said Mark Linn.
Two senior United States generals on Thursday publicly agreed with a warning by Britain’s outgoing ambassador to Iraq, William Patey, that the country is slipping towards civil war and partition. ”I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war,” said General John Abizaid.