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/ 17 October 2005
Finally, the great pharmaceutical case has drawn to a close. In May last year two applications were launched challenging regulations promulgated by the Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang that gave effect to a pricing system for the sale of medicines. The matter was initially heard by three judges of the Cape High Court as a matter of urgency in May 2004.
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/ 17 October 2005
For a company as usually sure-footed as Sony, it was a bit of a faux pas. The electronics giant marked a decade of PlayStation two weeks ago with full-page ads in Italian newspapers and magazines featuring a smirking young man wearing a "crown of thorns" and the legend "Ten years of Passion".
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/ 17 October 2005
The Pension Funds Adjudicator issued a further 14 rulings relating to retirement annuities recently, of which four were settled by the life companies. This brings the total number of RA rulings to 68. According to the PFA’s office, it has seen a substantial increase in the number of complaints received over the past six months.
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/ 17 October 2005
Darfur seems hell-bent on regaining its appellation earned two years ago as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Three African Union peacekeepers and two contractors attached to the force were killed, recently — the first fatalities for the 6 600 strong continental force in the troubled west of Sudan.
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/ 17 October 2005
It is up to 40% cheaper to buy South African-made steel in foreign countries than it is in the local market, even after shipping, wharfage and other costs have been paid. That’s because Mittal Steel (previously Iscor) prices its goods in the domestic market as if they were imported — known as import parity pricing.
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/ 17 October 2005
Staff at the Universal Services Agency, which is charged with rolling out information communications technology access to poor communities, say that the agency unfairly backs Microsoft’s proprietary software rather than non-Â proprietary open source software.
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/ 17 October 2005
The battle of the banks for the cellphone banking market is getting into full swing with Absa coming forward with a high–profile mobile banking campaign offering free cellphone banking for six months. Although Absa was the first bank to introduce cellphone banking in August 2000, the product was in many ways ahead of its time.
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/ 17 October 2005
Political reform is likely to be high on the agenda of a closed-door meeting of China’s communist leaders amid growing strains between a population demanding more rights and a bureaucracy increasingly using illegal means to maintain its grip on power.
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/ 17 October 2005
”After 1990, the African National Congress Youth League leadership aggressively engaged key leaders of the ANC on various matters, including political succession. The result of this produced, in the ANCYL’s opinion, three key leaders for the next generation, namely Thabo Mbeki, Chris Hani and Jacob Zuma,” writes Thando Mzolo, a former member of the ANCYL.
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/ 17 October 2005
Nicolas Muhamiriza (47) was once the owner of a thriving bottling plant. Now he’s among thousands in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s eastern city of Goma who struggle to pay rent for wooden shacks, their livelihoods destroyed nearly four years ago when lava submerged schools, hospitals and houses.