With the spectre of price controls on private hospitals looming, market leader Netcare has called for self-regulation by the industry to ward off moves by government to set prices. Netcare found itself in the eye of a storm recently amid accusations that it benefited from non-transparent pricing and for not passing on rebates from suppliers to its customers.
Amid the top-level dialogue, public debate and opulent functions dedicated to solving the scourge of violence against women and children, is it possible that we are losing sight of the obvious? Could we be suffering from the "bullshit baffles brains" syndrome instead of allowing common sense and reason to prevail?
Could one of the inventors of the webcam transform the economics of computing for the poor? In 1991, when he was a doctoral student at Cambridge, Quentin StaffordFraser hooked up a camera to monitor the department’s coffeepot so his fellow workers would know when it was fresh.
Last month Bidvest Bank was launched officially in South Africa, the latest project of diversified industrial giant Bidvest. Brian Joffe’s company appears to have taken the view that there’s nowhere to go but up, although Bidvest is taking a conservative approach. Joffe founded his empire 18 years ago with one acquisition, Chipkins, a catering services company.
The Yangtze River dolphin has been declared officially extinct following an intensive survey of its natural habitat. The freshwater marine mammal is the first large vertebrate forced to extinction by human activity in 50 years, and only the fourth time an entire evolutionary line of mammals has vanished from the face of the Earth since the year 1500.
Bit by bit, the tensions on the Korean peninsula are easing. This week it was announced that the leaders of north and south would meet for a two-day summit, the first in seven years, later this month. In July, the communist regime shut down its sole nuclear reactor and promised to make a full disclosure of its nuclear programme.
Since the news of her firing on Wednesday night went public, many voices, including the ANC Women’s League in the Northern Cape, Cosatu, the SACP, the Treatment Action Campaign, Independent Democrat leader Patricia de Lillie, the DA and private individuals have come out supporting her, querying the motives for her dismissal.
President Hugo Chávez has launched an intensive tour of South America to shore up Venezuela’s influence over the region and to loosen the grip of Western creditors. The socialist leader promised to buy up to -billion of Argentinian bonds and to help fund a -million gas plant, bolstering his reputation as a benefactor of Buenos Aires’s economic recovery.
As Thabo Mbeki heads into the twilight of his presidency, his legacy as a feminist is one he holds dear. That much is clear from his speeches and writings. Mbeki talks a great deal about women’s empowerment and he has walked the numerical talk. The deputy presidency, and more than half the premierships and cabinet posts, are occupied by women.
The unfolding catastrophe in Iraq has condemned the political judgement of a president. But it has also condemned the judgement of many others, myself included, who as commentators supported the invasion. Many of us believed, as an Iraqi exile friend told me the night the war started, that it was the only chance the members of his generation would have to live in freedom in their own country.