A total of 36 000 jobs were created during the 2004/5 financial year through the Development Bank of Southern Africa’s investment projects, the bank said on Tuesday. The new number of jobs created through funded projects was a 45% increase against the same reporting period in the last year, DBSA managing director Mandla Gantsho said.
A boat carrying 102 people capsized in northeastern Nigeria with all passengers feared dead, national media reported on Tuesday. Recent heavy rains have caused flooding and swollen rivers in most parts of the populous West African nation.
Metro Cash and Carry (Metcash) is retrenching ”about 600” of its workers for the company to survive and save 9 500 other jobs, the company said on Tuesday. ”In order for the company to survive, we have to go through the process of retrenching,” said Carlos dos Santos, Metcash’s CEO.
A Colombian plane with 152 people on board crashed in a mountainous region in western Venezuela early on Tuesday, Interior Minister Jesse Chacon said. ”According to our estimates, the plane crashed in Sierra de Perija between 3am and 3.45am,” he said on state television. It is unclear whether anyone survived.
Israeli settlers wept tears of rage and defiance on Tuesday as they clashed with security forces poised to evict them from their Gaza Strip homes after a midnight deadline. Police and soldiers traded punches with their fellow Israeli citizens in the main settlement of Neve Dekalim.
A Colombian plane with 160 people on board crashed on Tuesday in the mountains of western Venezuela, leaving no survivors. The West Caribbean Airways plane, on a flight from Panama to Martinique in the French West Indies, came down in a remote zone in the Sierra de Perija mountains.
Old Mutual Healthcare and Kwacha, the holding company of 100% black-owned Sizwe Medical Services, have announced the proposed merger of their businesses that will result in the health-care subsidiary of Old Mutual being 36% black-owned, after taking into account its black economic empowerment (BEE) deal announced in April this year.
Listed gaming and hotels group Johnnic Holdings has urged its shareholders to reject an offer by Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI), arguing that the offer, which undervalues Johnnic shares, is lower than the current share price and would deny Johnnic shareholders participation in the potential upside.
More than 1 400 firefighters and soldiers were on Tuesday combating eight wildfires in northern and central Portugal, news reports said. The biggest fire was reported in the Pampilhosa da Serra in Coimbra district, where nearly 400 firefighters were trying to contain a blaze raging since Saturday.
Twenty-one Department of Social Development officials faced fraud charges in the Nelspruit Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday as part of a nationwide campaign against benefit cheats. The officials are accused of receiving grants to which they are not entitled. More than 160 people had been identified for arrest in the fraud swoop.