Vodacom’s revenue for the period ended in March 2005 rose 19,5% to R27,3-billion, with profit from operations increasing 24% to R6,5-billion, the firm announced on Monday. During the period under review, the company’s subscriber base surged 38% to 15,5-million.
Members of a labour union taking part in strike action against Metrorail will march to the train operator’s head office in Johannesburg on Monday. Chris de Vos, the general secretary of the United Transport and Allied Trade Unions, said no Metrorail trains were running in Cape Town.
For 26 years the assassin’s work has been one of the most ubiquitous and chilling episodes of the Cold War, but his identity one of its enduring secrets. The Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov (49) felt a sharp prick in his leg as he waited for a bus in 1978 on Waterloo Bridge.
Deputy President Jacob Zuma is ”fine” amid a chorus of calls for his resignation since the outcome of the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial, his office said on Monday. ”Life goes on,” said spokesperson Lakela Kaunda in Pretoria. ”The deputy president is fine. We are going to have a normal working day today [Monday].”
The Competition Commission is conducting a preliminary probe into fees and charges in the banking industry, media reports said on Monday. Commission spokesperson Zodwa Ntuli said the purpose of the inquiry was to determine whether a full investigation was required.
United States troops have found a vast network of bunkers beneath the Iraqi desert that insurgents used as a base, complete with kitchen and air conditioning, the US military said at the weekend. The largest complex, measuring 166m by 269m, was carved from an old rock quarry near Karma, in the restive province of Anbar, west of Baghdad.
To some it may sound dysfunctional and autocratic, but in Russia, it is the model family. The man — a terse, authoritarian workaholic — comes home, knackered, to his kitchen table in the leafy suburbs between 11.30pm and midnight, slumps into a chair, and drinks a glass of yoghurty milk.
The focus always falls on the disparities between the salary packages of chief executives and the lowest-paid workers, but the era of black economic empowerment deals reveals much larger gaps between the top names and the broad base of shareholders.
The government calls the operation "Murambatsvina", a Shona word meaning "to drive out rubbish". But, on the city streets where the campaign has been carried out, people describe it as Zimbabwe’s own "tsunami": a razing of informal settlements and markets that has left thousands homeless and jobless.
The city (Johannesburg, that is) is moving. Perhaps that means the whole country is moving — ugly, functional, here-today-gone-tomorrow Johannesburg being South Africa’s powerhouse, cultural and economic hub, magnet for Africa’s rough and ready, and barometer of what’s up and what’s down.