Hundreds of anti-debt campaigners were expected to take to the streets of Pretoria on Thursday in protest against the World Bank’s privatisation policy. Sonto Mthimkhulu, chairperson of the Gauteng branch of the International Jubilee Debt Campaign (JDC), said they would march from the International Monetary Fund offices in Park Street to the World Bank building in Pretorius Street to hand over a memorandum.
A rising generation of African comic book artists are tackling the bloodshed, corruption and absurdities of daily life, winning adoring audiences at home and a growing fan base abroad. Comics from Sudan to South Africa are on display at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest show of its kind, giving some an unprecedented opportunity to reach a global audience with their biting observations.
Last month, Durban entrepreneur, Tracey Collier, was shocked to find her phone bill dotted with phone calls to Samoa, on occasions when she believed she was dialing out to a local internet service provider. The culprit was a "rogue dialler" — a spyware variant that surreptitiously loads itself onto your hard drive and changes the default settings that allow you to connect to the internet.
Unions and management have agreed on wage increases at the Northam Platinum mine in Limpopo, while a deadlock continued at two other large platinum mines near Rustenburg on Thursday. Lower level workers at Northam would get an 8,5% increase, middle level 8,25%, and higher level workers 8%, National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) general secretary Archie Palane said.
The JSE Securities Exchange South Africa, which reached a record high in early trade, remained in positive territory in noon trade on Thursday buoyed by a weaker rand. By 12h00, the all share index was up 0,74% at 12,012.990 after hitting an historic high of 12,054.690 in opening trade. Industrials were 0,71% stronger.
African Nobel Prize laureates and heads of state gathered on Wednesday in the Senegalese capital for an African Union-sponsored conference on peace and the continent’s renaissance. Former South African president FW de Klerk, who earned the peace prize in 1993 with icon Nelson Mandela for their efforts to end apartheid in South Africa, and Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1986, were on hand for a gala evening in their honour.
Cocoa producers have until July 1, 2005 to prove that their beans were produced without child labour, to be able to sell on the international market, the Ghana News Agency reported on Wednesday. Kwame Sarpong, chief executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board said that the certification had become necessary because of concerns raised by global consumers over the use of child labour in the cultivation of cocoa beans.
A suspect has been arrested in connection with the murder of former Umtshezi municipality speaker Stanley Chetty, police said on Wednesday. Chetty was gunned down on September 20 when he and board members of the Inkomfe Cluster Project were taking a break following a board meeting.
A British entrepreneur has proposed turning a Sydney house where a Filipino-Australian slaughtered his family into a gruesome museum commemorating one of the city’s grisliest crimes. The neat brick home in the affluent suburb of Epping has been dubbed Australia’s house of horrors after student Sef Gonzales (24) killed his father, mother and teenage sister in 2001.
The Cabinet on Wednesday approved the construction of a R2,1-billion water project that will pump water from the Vaal Dam to an existing water supply infrastructure near Secunda, Mpumalanga, the department of Water and Forestry said in Pretoria.