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/ 14 November 2006
Poor people are needlessly dying because drug companies and the governments of rich countries are blocking the developing world from obtaining affordable medicines, a report says on Tuesday. Five years to the day after the Doha declaration — a groundbreaking deal to give poor countries access to cheap drugs — was signed at the World Trade Organisation, Oxfam says things are worse.
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/ 14 November 2006
Apologies and explanations flowed on Monday after Judge Hilary Squires’s denial that he found the relationship between former deputy president Jacob Zuma and businessman Schabir Shaik to be ”generally corrupt”. In Bloemfontein, the Supreme Court of Appeal said it erred in ascribing the phrase to Squires.
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/ 14 November 2006
The key reasons for the growing divide between Muslim and Western societies are not religious but political, concludes a report presented to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday in Istanbul, Turkey. "We need to get away from stereotypes, generalisations and preconceptions, and take care not to let crimes committed by individuals or small groups dictate our image of an entire people."
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/ 14 November 2006
Banking fees are a disincentive to save, according to Gabriel Davel (below) of the National Credit Regulator. In his submission during the public hearings held by the Banking Commission recently, he demonstrated that it actually costs people to save money in a bank account and that it could actually be cheaper for people to access credit rather than to save.
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/ 14 November 2006
Nearly 200 prisoners who were forced to go ”cold turkey” and give up drugs without treatment while in jail accepted £750 000 compensation from the government in the High Court on Tuesday. The prisoners had argued that the short, sharp detoxification treatment in prison was a breach of their human rights.
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/ 14 November 2006
”The world is investing too little,” according to one prominent economist. ”The current situation has its roots in a series of crises over the past decade that were caused by excessive investment, such as the Japanese asset bubble, the crises in emerging Asia and Latin America and, most recently, the IT bubble. Investment has fallen off sharply since, with only very cautious recovery.”
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/ 14 November 2006
On a balmy Saturday afternoon in the suburbs, I am strangling a much older woman with a diamond ring in her nose. When I loosen my grip she shows me her arms. “I’ll have to sue my daughter for bruises from you,” she says. “You’re a violent woman.” My sparring partner blames her daughter for sending her to a self-defence workshop facilitated by 7th Dan Black Belt Karate Sensei Sanette Smit, aka Smitti.
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/ 13 November 2006
Trade unions on Monday called for more consultation over diamond giant De Beers’s planned retrenchment of about 1 000 workers. The number of employees affected has grown from 963 to 1 124 out of about 7 000, said Solidarity spokesperson Reint Dykema.
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/ 13 November 2006
Judge Hilary Squires’s denial that he had referred to a ”generally corrupt relationship” between former deputy president Jacob Zuma and Schabir Shaik has no legal implications, said the National Prosecuting Authority on Monday. The denial has led to fierce comment from political parties and the Congress of South African Trade Unions.