Sportswear made by Puma, Umbro, Fila, Adidas, Reebok, Nike and ASICS is being produced by workers around the world whose rights are being regularly violated, according to a major report by Oxfam and trade unions.
The JSE Securities Exchange South Africa (JSE) was slightly weaker in noon trade on Thursday due to a slightly stronger rand, which weighed on heavyweight resources stocks. Dealers said that it had been a slow morning, with low volumes. At 12.10pm, the all-share index was down 0,26%.
Swaziland’s nurses remained on strike for a second day on Thursday amid a last-ditch effort by the government to have the protest for wage arrears dating back to 2001 declared illegal. Last week’s crippling protest claimed the lives of at least seven patients, according to the strike organiser, the Swaziland Nurses Association.
Pakistan on Thursday rejected Nigerian claims that its armed forces chief offered this week to help the African state acquire nuclear power. "We are denying it. This is baseless. He said nothing of this kind," said military spokesperson Major General Shaukat Sultan.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=32158">Nigeria may become a nuclear power</a>
Security forces have arrested one of the top leaders of the al-Qaeda terror network in Yemen during a hunt for Islamic extremists in the southern province of Abyan, local officials said on Thursday. ”A senior official of al-Qaeda in Yemen who was wanted by the police was arrested Wednesday night,” one official said.
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South Africa’s Deputy President Jacob Zuma went on the campaign trail in Cape Town on Thursday, and immediately came face-to-face with some of the harsh realities of South African society.
Elections 2004
South Africa should launch an urgent education campaign on post-exposure prophylaxis services for rape survivors and also make clear statements supporting anti-retroviral drugs, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.
Ten years ago, United States Marine Staff Sergeant Mark Hardin arrived in Haiti as part of a US force to restore Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power. Earlier this week, after the US had forced Aristide to leave, Hardin was back. ”It looks like nothing’s changed,” he said.
The hamlet where Nelson Mandela spent his boyhood may have attracted big businesses keen to link up to South Africa’s most famous name but it still faces huge social and economic problems that bedevil thousands of villages in the country.
”First wages were cut, now workers are just waiting to be told to pack their bags and go,” Joseph Talane, a worker at De Beers’s Cullinan mine, remarked gloomily this week. Talane’s job is under threat after De Beers announced its intention to fire 14% of its South African workers because of the continuing effect of the strong rand on earnings. Five of De Beers’s seven mines are running at a loss.