No image available
/ 18 January 2006
The government asked the Durban High Court on Wednesday to seize R34-million in assets from Schabir Shaik, the former financial adviser of dismissed deputy president Jacob Zuma. Lawyers and journalists crowded the court room on Wednesday, but Shaik did not attend the hearing, radio reports said.
No image available
/ 18 January 2006
Motorists were contacting the Johannesburg metro police’s new SMS information service at the rate of one a second at times on Wednesday to find out whether there were any unpaid fines or warrants of arrest against them. ”It’s like New Year’s Eve. It’s going crazy,” said metro police spokesperson Edna Mamoyane.
No image available
/ 18 January 2006
The ruling African National Congress should amend its municipal councillors’ oath to include a penalty for non-compliance, the opposition Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. Failure to do so renders the ANC’s stated commitment to fighting corruption, maladministration and mismanagement mere rhetoric, chief whip Douglas Gibson told reporters in Cape Town.
No image available
/ 18 January 2006
European stocks were sharply lower on Wednesday as a chaotic session in Japan compounded gloom over earnings updates from the United States, where Intel, Yahoo and Wells Fargo failed to meet expectations. Given that ”the selling was relentless through the night”, the ”sea of red” was to be expected, said a trader.
No image available
/ 18 January 2006
Twenty-four people froze to death in western Russia and Moscow switched to a ”strict” energy conservation regime on Wednesday as overnight temperatures plunged below minus 30 degrees Celsius in the capital and to substantially colder levels elsewhere in the country.
No image available
/ 18 January 2006
With just a day to go before Africa’s first-ever World Social Forum (WSF) gets under way in Mali, attitudes towards the meeting appear somewhat mixed in the West African country. Some expect just to hear ”the same speeches”, while others want to ”show the world’s leading powers that their policies are unfair”.
No image available
/ 18 January 2006
United States First Lady Laura Bush announced on Wednesday that Nigeria will receive -million in US assistance to fight Aids as she heard a young woman at a small Aids clinic tell how medications helped her avoid death from the disease. Bush visited health workers and Aids patients at a hospital on the outskirts of Abuja.
No image available
/ 18 January 2006
Marrying for money, it turns out, works. A study by an Ohio State University researcher shows that a person who marries — and stays married — accumulates nearly twice as much personal wealth as a person who is single or divorced. And for those who divorce, it’s a bit more expensive than giving up half of everything they own.
No image available
/ 18 January 2006
Crude oil prices gained on Wednesday as traders fretted over threats to supply if sanctions were to be made against Iran, Opec’s second-largest producer, over its nuclear ambitions. Disruptions in Nigerian oil supplies amid rising civil unrest also fuelled gains.
No image available
/ 18 January 2006
German ”tax refugees” dodging tough new banking laws at home are taking billions of euros across the border and depositing them in Austrian banks, said the newspaper Die Presse on Wednesday. The Banking Cooperative Federation in Germany’s Bavaria state estimated that last year alone, two billion euros (,4-billion) had flowed from its member-banks to Austria.