Small businesses have a disproportionately high failure rate in their first three years of operation. While franchises may be less likely to fail, they’re certainly not immune. "The three major reasons are: the wrong location, an ill-suited franchisee and an unproven concept," said Anita du Toit of Franchising Plus.
International Women’s Day is a time when we take stock each year of the progress, or lack of it, on women’s rights. This stockÂtaking happens all over the world, involving both women and men, and it reveals some progress. Sadly, it also suggests that we still have a long way to go.
Positive prospects in the growth category of the collective investment industry have been confirmed by the latest economic data, says Stanlib, the country’s largest unit-trust company. "The figures were ahead of expectations," says Richard Middleton, manager of the Stanlib Capital Growth Fund and head of the Stanlib growth franchise.
In one episode of that brilliant television drama set in the White House, West Wing, two of the incumbent president’s aides are discussing who to endorse as his replacement. ”What happened to the days when a few crusty old men sat in a smoke-filled room and chose the candidate over cigars and port? They didn’t choose so badly. They chose men like Roosevelt and Truman,” one of them says.
A friend visiting from Sierra Leone once nodded in agreement with a Nigerian colleague’s comment: ”The great thing about South Africa is that you really value your languages.” She had asked me what language Generations or Isidingo characters were speaking to each other, finding it remarkable that national television used more than one language in this way, writes Pumla Dineo Gqola.
Unknown gunmen kidnapped BBC correspondent Alan Johnston in Gaza City on Monday afternoon, Palestinian security officials said. Johnston, a two-year veteran of the Gaza Strip, was driving his rental car in the city’s upscale Remal neighbourhood when a white Subaru blocked his path.
Trustees of Brett Kebble’s estate have issued notices of demand to the African National Congress (ANC) to repay millions it had received from the slain mining magnate, the Sunday Times reported. The notices demanded the return of ”R24-million in stolen money paid to the ANC and leading members from Kebble’s personal account between 2002 and 2005”.
Senegal’s highest court confirmed President Abdoulaye Wade’s landslide re-election in last month’s elections on Sunday, throwing out an appeal by the main opposition over alleged irregularities. ”Candidate Abdoulaye Wade is first with 1 914 403 votes, representing 55,90% of valid votes,” said Ndeye Magatte Mbengue, chief clerk of the Constitutional Court.
Zimbabwe’s long-ruling President Robert Mugabe said in an interview on Sunday that he intends to stand in the country’s next presidential elections if they are held as scheduled in 2008. ”If the party says so, I will stand,” the Southern Times, co-published by New Era in Windhoek and Zimbabwe Newspapers in Harare, quoted Mugabe as saying.
At least 58 people were killed in a spate of attacks across Iraq on Sunday, including 31 Shi’ite pilgrims who died in a car bombing as they returned from a religious festival, security officials said. The car bomb exploded as pilgrims arrived in several vehicles at Baghdad’s downtown Karrada district from Karbala in central Iraq.