As police hinted at withdrawing at least some of the over-stretched officers manning strike-hit prisons in the Eastern Cape, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union on Sunday warned that the action is just the build-up to countrywide disruptions.
Retiring Old Mutual plc chairperson Mike Levett has resigned as a non-executive director of the boards of Old Mutual subsidiaries Nedcor and Nedbank. He will be replaced on the Nedcor boards by Bob Head (45), who is currently director responsible for group human resources, brand and strategy at Old Mutual plc, based in London.
The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) was near a new high at midday on Monday after an extremely quiet morning’s trade. While the bourse was lifted by a weaker rand in early trade, it managed to maintain its strength despite a recovery in the currency. By 11.58am, the all-share index was up 0,46% at 12 715.
Just three months before parliamentary polls set for March, Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF has slashed several ”prominent names” from contesting important party primary elections. Information Minister and President Robert Mugabe’s chief spin doctor Jonathan Moyo is one of three ministers prohibited from contesting the primaries.
South African-born Zimbabwean nationalist leader Ruth Chinamano has died, family members said on Monday. She was ”in her 70s”, they said. Chinamano began organising women’s demonstrations against colonial and Rhodesia rule in Harare’s Highfields township, a place often cited as the birth of Zimbabwe’s nationalist movement.
Iraqi insurgents are waging an all-out war on the country’s vital oil industry, which has lost nearly -billion in revenue since last year’s United States-led invasion. Osama bin Laden ordered his supporters to sabotage oil facilities in Iraq and the Gulf, in an audio tape attributed to the al-Qaeda leader broadcast on an Islamist website last month.
Crude futures fell sharply on Monday on the first trading day of the new year as milder winter weather across the north-eastern United States eased demand on heating oil in the high-usage area. Mid-morning in Asia, crude for February delivery fell 70 cents to ,72 per barrel in electronic trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The man who brought the Yugo and Subaru to the United States and built a gull-wing sports car bearing his name has a new project — selling Chinese-made cars in the US. Chery Automobile, owned by the Chinese government, has signed a deal with the privately held Visionary Vehicles of New York to sell Chery’s cars in the US.
Readership of the online journals known as blogs (short for web logs) grew significantly in 2004, driven by increased awareness of them during the United States presidential campaign and other major news events, according to a study released on Sunday. Twenty-seven percent of online adults in the US said in November they read blogs.
Anthony Sampson, who passed away recently, was a fine journalist and an award-winning author of several books dissecting Britain, the oil industry and the arms trade. He was also the editor of Drum magazine in the 1950s. And nearly 20 years ago, he played a crucial role in the survival of a new, fearless tabloid, The Weekly Mail (WM), the Mail & Guardian‘s forerunner.