United States journalist Jill Carroll has been released almost 12 weeks after being abducted at gunpoint on a Baghdad street, Sunni politician Tariq al-Hashimi told Agence France-Presse on Thursday. ”She is free and is with me right now,” Hashimi said, but did not give further details.
Microsoft has delayed the release of Windows Vista by up to eight weeks — and become the Grinch that stole the PC industry’s Christmas. Vista, the next version of Windows, will still be delivered to corporate users this year. But, as the company put it in a masterfully spun press release last week, ”broad consumer availability” will be delayed until January 2007.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is contemplating strike action against the Gautrain project, the provincial branch of the union federation said on Thursday. Gauteng provincial secretary Siphiwe Mgcina told reporters that the project failed to tackle the most significant transport problems in the province.
JK Rowling, author of the internationally successful Harry Potter series, said the seventh and final book about the schoolboy wizard ”is coming along nicely” as she won Britain’s Book of the Year award. Her sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, received the accolade at the British Book Awards on Wednesday night.
Consumer confidence in South Africa in the first quarter of the year was at its highest level ever in the 24-year existence of the composite consumer-confidence index (CCI), First National Bank (FNB) announced on Thursday. FNB and Stellenbosch University’s Bureau for Economic Research (BER) measure the trends reflected in the CCI.
A severe tropical cyclone packing winds of up to 250kph slammed into a major oil and mining region of western Australia on Thursday but missed the area’s main population centres. Cyclone Glenda hit land about 4pm local time in cattle-grazing territory in the Pilbara region about 200km south-west of the massive oil- and ore-shipping centre of Karratha.
Hong Kong will ban the sale of live poultry in markets within three years in a move aimed at averting an outbreak of deadly bird flu, the city’s political leader said on Thursday. Chief executive Donald Tsang told the legislature that while the territory was closely monitoring the spread of the H5N1 virus in China, it should also remain on guard.
South Africa’s producer inflation data index rose by 5,5% year-on-year (y/y) in February — unchanged from January’s rate, Statistics South Africa said on Thursday. The producer price index (PPI) rose by 0,2% on a monthly basis after January’s monthly decrease of 0,1%.
The JSE was roaring ahead in noon trade on Thursday, fuelled by soaring precious metals prices. Firmer world markets gave the move added impetus. By 12.14pm, the all-share index added 1,35%. Resources rallied 2,15%, with the gold- and platinum-mining indices jumping 3,6% and 2,8% respectively.
The price of platinum on Thursday surged to an all-time high of $1 086 an ounce, eclipsing its previous all- time best of $1 085/oz established on February 3, on the back of gains in gold and silver, analysts said. At about noon on Thursday, gold climbed above $580/oz for the first time since January 1980.