More than three-quarters of South African households receive free water and more than half receive free electricity, Statistics South Africa said in Pretoria on Thursday — but two million households are without toilet facilities. The figures are part of a non-financial census of municipalities for the year ending June 2003.
For a games industry expert, Trip Hawkins has had a bumpy career. He was one of Apple Computer’s first employees and one of the founders of Electronic Arts in 1982, before leaving in 1991 to initiate the ill-fated 3DO console, which eventually slipped into bankruptcy.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Thursday stepped up pressure on opposition MPs to back his 2005 Budget, which Parliament must pass within two weeks or the government will collapse, jeopardising his planned Gaza evacuation. The 2005 state Budget has been touted as the last political chance for staunch opponents to scupper Sharon’s plan to quit Gaza.
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As the world focuses on the upcoming Zimbabwean elections, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) on Thursday released startling new statistics that call for politicians and donors to defend children as rigorously as they defend democracy. ”The world must differentiate between the politics and the people of Zimbabwe,” said Unicef executive director Carol Bellamy.
Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel has the authority to take a decision on the Barclays bid to buy a majority share in Absa — but he may wish to put the matter to Cabinet before the announcement is made, said government spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe on Thursday following Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting.
It was confirmed on Thursday that a 16-year-old pupil of Randburg High School is suffering from meningococcal meningitis. A spokesperson for Wilgeheuwel hospital, Marietjie Shelly, said Dominique du Plessis is in a stable condition in the intensive-care unit. ”There has been improvement since yesterday,” said Shelly.
President Thabo Mbeki has appointed Judge Sisi Khampepe of the Witwatersrand Division of the High Court to head a commission which will assess whether the Scorpions should fall under the Justice Department — or under the Department of Safety and Security.
South Africa’s police and Department of Foreign Affairs officials are liaising on the reported arrest of a South African in New York on weapons-smuggling charges, police said on Thursday. According to reports, Christiaan Dewet Spies was arrested with at least 17 others in an FBI operation at a hotel in Manhattan, New York, earlier this week.
An explosion killed at least 29 people early on Thursday when a passenger bus hit a truck carrying more than six tonnes of explosives in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangxi, local police said. The double-decker bus collided with the truck, causing the explosives to detonate, as the bus driver was trying to overtake it.
The price of Brent North Sea crude oil reached a new record high of ,25 per barrel in trading in London on Thursday amid concerns of a supply crunch, despite the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries’s move to hike output. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, hit a record ,70 in electronic deals on Thursday.