South Africa’s government considers tourism to be one of its main economic development strategies. In 2002, South Africa was rated the fastest-growing tourism destination worldwide, with a 12% increase in the third quarter of 2002 alone. In 2003, a 4,2% increase in overseas visits was recorded.
The Industrial Development Corporation can reflect on its results in one of two ways. It can bask in the glory of a robust nine-month period, as it did recently. The other view is to say that the stock market boom has given it considerable but artificial strength. The funder unveiled its results for the nine months to March as it prepares to move up a gear in its big project investments.
The life industry’s reputation has taken a mauling this year as pension fund adjudicator Vuyani Ngalwana issued a blizzard of rulings in favour of consumers. Many of these rulings force the life companies to reimburse clients who have been over-charged in violation of their own rules, or where customers have been penalised for requesting that their investments be transferred.
Can South Africa’s heavily regulated and structurally distorted fuel industry be opened up, even if the dominant wholesale player, Sasol, teams up with with one of the biggest retailers, Engen? It is a question that currently has competition authorities tied up in arcane supply contracts, pipeline tariffs and demand projections.
The Department of Education (DoE) will introduce a new curriculum to grades 10, 11 and 12 over the next three years. Some seem to think curriculum change is a uniquely South African phenomenon. But across the world, in developed and developing countries alike, school and higher-education curricula are consistently revised.
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There was no evidence of ”crispy, fried monkeys” at the fire-ravaged premises of the Animal and Reptile Park in Muldersdrift, an International Wildlife Welfare Organisation inspector said after visiting the private sanctuary on Monday, contradicting claims of animal deaths by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Hurricane Emily blasted the world-famous beach resorts on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Monday, where thousands of tourists were evacuated or took refuge in shelters while the storm toll across the Caribbean rose to seven dead. Thousands of tourists were evacuated to wait as Emily headed out into the Gulf of Mexico.
About one million people have been displaced from rain-swept villages in heavy monsoon flooding in northern and central Bangladesh, officials said on Monday. Earlier, disaster management officials said about 100 000 people were fighting the elements in villages isolated by flood waters.
A group of South African church leaders from the South African Council of Churches (SACC) arrived back in Zimbabwe on Monday to discuss an aid package for people affected by the government’s blitz on illegal homes and market stalls that has left hundreds of thousands homeless. The visit follows a fact-finding mission last week by an SACC delegation.