South Africa coach Ray Jennings basked in the glory of his team’s 5-0 series sweep of the West Indies on Sunday, sending a message to his bosses back home: retain him as coach. There have been rumours that the 50-year-old Jennings will be replaced after the West Indies tour by Mickey Arthur, who coaches the Eastern Cape Warriors.
Buoyed by positive economic conditions and demand for credit, the country’s biggest microlender, African Bank Investments Limited (Abil), boosted headline earnings by 30% from R327-million to R424-million for the six months ended March. This translated into headline earnings per share of 90,2 cents.
The broad-based black equity ownership programme announced by the country’s biggest microlender, African Bank Investments Limited (Abil) on Monday, could potentially reach more than 30Â 000 people, according to Abil. The deal is valued at about R600-million.
Listed shipping and transport group Grindrod has acquired a 50% stake in Sheltam Locomotive and Rail Services for an undisclosed amount, the company announced on Monday. Indications by Grindrod management are that it is the largest acquisition in Grindrod’s land-freight expansion programme to date.
Ethiopians voted by the millions, responding enthusiastically to a open parliamentary race between the coalition that ended a brutal dictatorship and an opposition promising greater liberalisation. But on Monday, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared a ban on demonstrations and open meetings in Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia’s opposition on Monday backed off a threat to reject nationwide results from hotly contested weekend elections it says were marred by fraud, saying their complaints were limited to key areas. The boycott threat led Prime Minister Meles Zenawi late on Sunday to ban all post-election demonstrations for one month.
The news on the radio was very confusing. The Supreme Court in Bloemfontein, it announced, had rejected a claim for compensation against the minister of safety and security made by a woman who had been raped by three uniformed policemen one dark night in 1999.
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union has turned its back on an opportunity to benefit from being involved in a consortium that bought 6,7% of Telkom, the Sunday Times reported. The Democratic Alliance welcomed the move, saying doing otherwise would have lent legitimacy to the enrichment of African National Congress presidential spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama.
Until last summer, Nguyen Thi Hanh used to watch flocks of ducks waddle across the road outside her house, holding up cars as they wandered about a tranquil village in which almost every family earned a major share of their income by raising fowl. Since an nearby outbreak of bird flu, however, the ducks have been slaughtered.
Newsweek magazine on Sunday admitted it had got its facts wrong on a story alleging that American military interrogators had desecrated copies of the Qur’an, after a week of protests about the article left at least 17 people dead and more than 100 injured. The report last week sparked protests across the Islamic world.