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/ 1 February 2005
Iraq’s interim Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, reached out to the country’s ethnic and religious minorities on Monday and called for a spirit of national unity in the wake of Sunday’s election. Allawi said the government would include groups that feared marginalisation under what is likely to be a Shia-dominated administration.
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/ 1 February 2005
The retirement fund industry can, and should, use its R1-trillion muscle to help fund infrastructure development and job creation through socially responsible investments (SRI). An actuarial science industry initiative, a publication called <i>SRI Focus</i>, calls on fund managers and pension fund trustees to help fund development without compromising their members’ interests or returns.
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/ 1 February 2005
”The transformation of the pharmaceutical industry, both in terms of ensuring the quality of medicine and reducing prices of drugs at manufacturing, distribution and retail industry levels has been the most challenging part of the transformation process in the health sector so far.” Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang reflects.
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/ 1 February 2005
”Back in the Seventies and Eighties, old school friends and other whites of my acquaintance who were perturbed by my anti-apartheid activities would ask why I was ‘giving my life up for the blacks’. I would explain that I wasn’t doing what I was doing ‘for the blacks’, but for a society free of oppression and exploitation, and that was also concerned with the rights of women and children,” writes Maurice Smithers.
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/ 1 February 2005
Labour disputes in southern China’s booming Guangdong province are becoming increasingly prominent as an unprecedented army of 30-million migrant workers clamours for better conditions and treatment. This astonishing influx of cheap labour has been the engine of China’s capitalist miracle, officials say, making Guangdong the nation’s most prosperous region.
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/ 1 February 2005
About 120 children were affected by the closure of three illegal crèches in central Johannesburg on Tuesday morning, the city’s metro police said. Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar said the crèches were shut down for not complying with fire-safety requirements.
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/ 1 February 2005
The Bush administration suffered a legal setback over its conduct of the war on terror on Monday when a United States federal judge ruled that the special military tribunals at Guantánamo Bay were unlawful. ”This means that these folks are actually going to get a hearing,” said Barbara Olshansky, of the Centre for Constitutional Rights.
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/ 1 February 2005
A senior Vatican official has supported the use of condoms to fight Africa’s Aids pandemic, contradicting the Catholic church’s official position. Cardinal Georges Cottier, theologian of the pontifical household, told the Italian news agency Apcom that the use of condoms was ”legitimate” to save lives in the poorest parts of Africa and Asia.
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/ 1 February 2005
The value of black economic empowerment (BEE) deals last year will easily be the highest value of deals recorded by the BusinessMap Foundation, surpassing the 1998 and 2003 peaks of about R21-billion. Last year’s BEE deal-making activity is unlikely to be replicated this year. Deal-making last year was driven largely — but not only — by the Financial Services Sector Charter and the Mining Charter.
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