The Johannesburg High Court has granted the African National Congress (ANC) leave to defend itself against efforts to force the party to return Brett Kebble’s donations. Trustees of the slain mining magnate’s estate have been trying to force the party to return R3,5-million as well as R875 000 given to the party’s Youth League.
A decision to appoint a mediator to facilitate a resolution to the impasse between Vodacom and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has been agreed to by both parties. The South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union has threatened to call for a boycott of Vodacom unless it extended organisational rights to the CWU.
Wage negotiations in the gold sector of the Chamber of Mines resumed at a slow pace on Monday, trade union Solidarity said. Solidarity mining spokesperson Reint Dykema said the Chamber of Mines had increased its salary offer from 7% to a ”disappointing” 7,25%.
The booming economy in South Africa has resulted in greater demand for products and workers from other African countries and added to the revenues already being enjoyed as a result of the high price of commodities. Ian Marsberg, senior economist at Absa, says in 1998 13,6% of South Africa’s merchandise exports went to the rest of Africa and this rose to 14,1% in 2005.
South African companies have been accessing markets throughout the African continent since the country regained admission into the world trading community. While there have been some less than stellar ventures into Africa, most companies have developed successful African business models that allow them to expand into these new markets and deliver profits to their shareholders.
South Africa exports goods and services to about 53 African countries. Last year this amounted to R53,1billion. Steven Matthews, CEO of FNB International Banking, says the 2006 exports represent a 16% increase on the value of exports in 2005 (R45billion). “Zambia was the top African destination for our exports last year, up from third place the previous year," says Matthews.
A Middle Eastern businessman spent over 000 in a five-hour, champagne- and vodka-fuelled spending spree in a London nightclub on the weekend. Fraser Donaldson, a representative of Crystal, a club favoured by Prince Harry, said in 20 years working in the industry it was the biggest bill he’d seen from one customer.
Isabelle Wirimana was nine years old the last time she saw her family. All she remembers of fleeing their house in Kigali, Rwanda, during the 1994 genocide is the crowd of passers-by carrying her from the crumbling city, away from her parents and four siblings lost somewhere on the road.
Less than a month after its policy conference, the ANC is battling the “two centres of power” as the party fights with its government structures about who is in charge. In the past two weeks the party has overruled two municipalities and the North West provincial government over deployments. In the Eastern Cape, the party told the Nelson Mandela Bay metro mayor Nondumiso Maphazi to put her reshuffling on ice.
The tents of thousands of pilgrims dot the hillside, the air is heavy with the scent of incense and the sounds of the church bell toll across the valley. This is the Armenian Christian pilgrimage marking the feast of the first-century missionary, St Thaddeus, deep in the north-western mountains of the Islamic Republic of Iran.