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/ 23 October 2006
Listed South African fast-food franchise group Famous Brands has reported a 22% increase in headline earnings per share to 51,8 cents for the six months ended August 31 from 42,7 cents for the comparable period last year. Gross revenue for the period increased by 33% to R406,3-million from R304,9-million in the prior period.
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/ 23 October 2006
The Israeli government has admitted that it used controversial phosphorus weapons in its attacks against targets during its month-long war in Lebanon this summer. The chemical can be used in shells, missiles and grenades and causes horrific burning when it comes into contact with human flesh.
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/ 23 October 2006
The biological father of 13-month-old ”Baby David” said on Sunday that he was misled into agreeing to give up his son to American pop diva Madonna, injecting new controversy and confusion into the adoption saga. Yohane Banda said that authorities had not made it clear to him that he was giving up his only son ”for good”.
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/ 23 October 2006
Child-committed sexual offences processed by the state have nearly doubled in the past year, the Star reported on Monday. It said 82 children — some as young as six — are being charged in courts across the country every day for raping or indecently assaulting other children.
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/ 23 October 2006
Fashion and decor shops trading in huge quantities of porcupine quills are contributing directly to the imminent extinction of the species, warns an independent report on the trade released this week. Despite the fact that porcupines are listed as a protected species, retail outlets are dealing in hundreds of thousands of quills.
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/ 23 October 2006
According to a column by its ”public editor” (aka ombudsman, or official busybody), the New York Times has been asking itself whether it does enough to distinguish between fact and opinion in its pages. A ”newsroom committee on credibility” looked into the matter and decided that what was needed was a ”news/opinion divide committee”.
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/ 23 October 2006
From someone recently elected president, I expected some airs. But Jimmy Manyi, the new Black Management Forum, president lacks them. I am taken aback that he, instead of a personal assistant, comes to the reception to welcome us and usher us to his office. He says something self-effacing. I say something else he finds funny. He bursts into a booming laughter.
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/ 23 October 2006
"Africans have woken up to the reality that they can, and should, own their own stories and that there is nothing stopping them from doing that." Stephanie Wolters interviewed Uduak Amimo, the new senior editorial adviser to the BBC World Service, about the media on the continent today.
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/ 23 October 2006
The International Monetary Fund has estimated that Africa needs to accelerate annual GDP growth to 7% to attain the goal of reducing by half the proportion of people living on less than one dollar a day by 2015. Africa’s economy as a whole is growing at about 5,5% in 2006.
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/ 23 October 2006
Pasilius Haingura, of the National Association of Namibian Teachers’ Unions, says that many of the country’s 20 000 teachers want to leave the profession. While noting that Namibian teachers are better off in terms of salaries than other public servants, he says the conditions under which teachers operate leave them with no other option but to seek other jobs.