It is a perennial complaint of shoppers that the consumer frenzy of Christmas begins earlier every year. Usually, however, even the most eager stores wait until the summer heatwave is over. But not Harrod’s, the famous London department store, which on Tuesday opened its Christmas department more than four months before the big day, with the city still enveloped in a fug of warm, humid weather.
News that Swahili has been adopted as one of the African Union’s working languages has been well received in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where nearly half the population speaks it, writes it or understands it. In all, Swahili is spoken by an estimated 70-million people in Africa.
South African officials have not yet been granted access to two South Africans being held in Pakistan, reportedly on terror accusations. Feroze Ganchi, a doctor from Fordsburg, Johannesburg, and 20-year-old student Zubair Ismail from Laudium in Pretoria, are among about a dozen people detained after a shootout with security forces at a house in Gujrat, south-east of Islamabad.
‘A humanist, not a terrorist’
Charges have been withdrawn against former Springbok rugby player ”Vleis” Visagie who accidentally shot dead his daughter when he mistook her for a car thief, his lawyer confirmed on Monday. The charges will formally be withdrawn on September 6, Visagie’s next scheduled court appearance.
South African mobile operator MTN and the South African National Taxi Council on Tuesday launched the Ring’uvaya (phone while you travel) initiative, which will equip South African taxis with pay phones, enabling commuters to make phone calls in the taxi. KwaZulu-Natal is the first province that will get Ring’uvaya phones.
Botswana has defended its practice of flogging people who cross its borders illegally, rejecting criticism by neighbouring Zimbabwe that the punishment is primitive. ”We do not discriminate and we are not going to give Zimbabweans any preferential treatment,” said Botswana’s assistant minister for presidential affairs.
After opening deep in the red on the back of a stronger rand, the JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) was well off its worst level in noon trade on Tuesday, after importer demand for dollars saw the currency lose ground. Volumes were reasonable, with just under R1-billion-worth of shares changing hands in morning trade.
About 30 000 ostriches will be stunned by a powerful electric shock and then shot with a single bullet to the brain from a specialised pistol, as mass culling of infected birds gets under way on Tuesday. The birds are being culled following an outbreak of avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu.
Nedcor is now stable but there is still much to do to restore the South African bank’s performance, Jim Sutcliffe — CEO of Nedcor’s United Kingdom-listed parent, Old Mutual — said on Tuesday. "But we can now concentrate on the future rather than the past," he added.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) on Tuesday stated that it is preparing its members in petrol stations, component manufacturing, car-dealer shops and panel-beating shops for strike action after wage negotiations failed. The union is preparing for the large-scale mobilisation of 180Â 000 workers.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=120108">Union calls Telkom strike</a>