Black ownership of companies trading on the JSE remained at only 7%, Business Report said on Wednesday. It quoted the BusinessMap Foundation as saying this figure was about 18% points off the government’s 2014 ownership target of 25%.
The Pentagon is trying to develop ”insect cyborgs” able to sniff out explosives, or ”bug” conversations by lurking unseen in enemy hideouts with micro-transmitters strapped to their bodies. The cyborgs — half insect, half robot — would be created by inserting tiny devices into the bodies of flying, hopping or crawling insects while in their larva or pupa stage.
Criticising the hit United States television series South Park for being offensive is a bit like criticising Antiques Roadshow for focusing too much on old things. But this has not prevented the soul singer Isaac Hayes from quitting the show in outrage at its treatment of Scientology — ending a nine-year association with a cartoon that has left few other religious or political groups unmocked.
Wanted former Zimbabwean opposition MP Roy Bennett is believed to have fled to South Africa, Harare’s Herald newspaper reported on Wednesday. Bennett — sought by police in connection with the recent discovery of an arms cache in Mutare — was said to have skipped the country via Mozambique.
Ambitious plans to reform the United Nations in the wake of the oil-for-food scandal and the Iraq schism have yet to amount to much. But one issue on which world leaders attending last September’s summit in New York did agree was the need to strengthen UN monitoring, protection and enforcement of universal standards of human rights.
The debate over the National Credit Bill has brought into focus the confusing issues around home insurance that often leave home buyers overpaying for insurance — or even paying for products they don’t need. Life insurance associated with home loans is another issue that buyers find confusing.
South African society has become much more knowledgeable and aware of its constitutional rights, and as a result has become a more litigious society. "From an insurance perspective, liability … means that the person involved must be legally liable, which can only be decided by a court of law," explains Jono Soames of Mutual & Federal.
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Since Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel’s easing of exchange controls in February, First National Bank (FNB) reports a renewed interest by South Africa’s newly emerged elite in investing offshore. "The near-threefold increase in the foreign capital allowance has spurred interest in investing abroad," FNB says.
It’s been a while since I gathered up a collection of delicious items to demonstrate human stupidity in action, so, yup — that’s the theme this time. Is it trite? Banal? Hell, yeah. I mean, are you reading this to get depressed, or to get a brief cackle or two that takes you out of the usual horrors of your everyday existence?