Food price inflation is likely to remain above the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) inflation target band of 3% to 6% CPIX (headline consumer inflation less mortgage rate changes) for the foreseeable future, thus maintaining pressure on local interest rates and consumers’ budgets.
The South African Revenue Service has posted its simpler, shorter tax returns to individual taxpayers. More than 2,5-million tax returns have been sent to the South African Post Office and will be delivered to taxpayers around the country this month. By the end of July, almost four million IT12 S and IT12C returns will have been mailed.
A Spanish judge has taken away visiting rights from a man who took his 10-year-old son to a running of the bulls during the annual Pamplona festival last week, Spanish media reported on Tuesday. The boy’s mother filed a police complaint after seeing a photograph published in a newspaper of her smiling ex-husband leading their son by the arm just a few steps ahead of the bulls.
A joint working group under the chairpersonship of President Thabo Mbeki has concluded that the targets set by the Growth and Development Summit four years ago have been 90% fulfilled. A figure of 4,2% is outstanding and 5,8% could be described as work in progress. The group met at the Union Buildings on Tuesday.
Standard Chartered Bank has been named the Best Emerging Markets Bank, one of the top global awards at the 2007 Euromoney Awards for Excellence. Standard Chartered also won a regional award for the Best Bank in Africa and a country award for the Best Bank in Ghana.
I seem to recall that, once upon a time, back in the Eighties, I attended a lecture given by Carl Rogers. I think it was at Wits University. I can’t remember much by way of detail, but I know that I wasn’t particularly impressed. You see, Rogerian therapy was a little too humanist for me at the time.
Almost every country wants a “world-class university”. Pakistan says it will establish nine in the next decade with help from Europe; Qatar has imported local campuses of several well-known United States universities to create an “education city”; and the director general of the Organisation of Islam Countries has appealed for at least 20 of its member states’ universities to be raised to “world-class quality”.
The economic boom being enjoyed by India is largely because of its outstanding records in higher education. The idea of universities as economic engines is nowhere else more realised than it is in India. India’s record of primary and secondary education is appalling, writes PG Raman.
Welcome to the University of Michigan (UM) in the city of Ann Arbor, near Detroit, the largest majority African-American city in the United States (US) and also near the city of Dearborn, home to the largest Arab population outside the Middle East. UM ranks as the number two public university and is one of the largest research universities in the US.
Like pride, lust goes before a fall. In his novel, <b>When a Man Cries</b> (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press), Siphiwo Mahala chronicles the downfall and uphill struggle of municipal councillor and serial seducer Themba Limba. This is an extract from chapter 11, "Should a man cry?":
Water containing some radioactive materials leaked from a nuclear power plant in Japan after a strong earthquake on Monday, a spokesperson for the firm running the facility said. "We have confirmed that water containing a slight amount of radioactive materials leaked out of the facility," said Shougo Fukuda, a spokesperson for Tokyo Electric.
Most Germans don’t believe money can buy happiness, according to a survey released on Monday, which found that only 13% of German men care deeply about becoming rich. The figure for women is even lower, with only 6% saying they regard wealth as an important goal, according to the poll.
By the standards of today’s reveal-all culture, the photographs were not particularly shocking. They were more Benny Hill than pornographic. One showed a fully dressed young woman beaming up to the camera as her boyfriend playfully bit her breast.
Zimbabweans are shopping like there’s no tomorrow. With police patrolling the aisles of Harare’s electrical shops to enforce massive price cuts, the widescreen TVs were the first things to go, for as little as R283 ($40). The police and groups of ruling party supporters could be seen leading the charge for a bargain.
The former unionist turned businessman and media mogul, Marcel Golding, hardly ever grants interviews. But he recently spoke to journalist and member of Parliament Ben Turok in a wide-ranging interview about his company, its owners and the ordinary workers who are benefiting. Turok started by asking him about when he first conceived of a trade union-owned company.
The promulgation of certain sections of the new Children’s Act on July 1 has caught the attention of the public and media. Some have applauded, others have said it is controversial and they are up in arms about it. Those in favour say the Act deals effectively with the pragmatic concerns of our time — HIV/Aids, burgeoning numbers of orphans, writes Ann Skelton.
David Cronin’s recent article ("EU aid puts health on the back seat", July 3) leaves one with the impression that the European Union is failing poor countries and alleges a "lack of focus on health and education" by EU donor support that "will put the achievement of the United Nations millennium development goals in jeopardy". This is simply untrue.
"There is no magic wand that can solve transport issues," says Rehana Moosajee, the Johannesburg mayoral committee member for transport, "but we can begin to change things." While road rage, safety, traffic congestion, public transport strikes and minibus-taxi violence have grabbed media headlines, solutions to transport crises are quietly under way.
<i>Noseweek</i> editor Martin Welz has landed in hot water many a time for investigative reports in his monthly magazine. The Media asks him some easy and not-so-easy questions.
A large public gathering of civil society organisations and government officials in the Swiss capital city of Berne on July 7 marked the halfway point to the 2015 date for achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The Berne event highlighted one critical dimension of the strategy needed to achieve the goals set by world leaders in 2000.
I read with incredulity Ferial Haffajee’s diatribe against the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) (Polokwane Briefing: "The state, revolution and rhetoric", June 30). While engaged in the struggle to discontinue private ownership of the means of production, the SACP also strives to build a coherent and united nation, and end patriarchy.
The road trip from Midrand to Polokwane may only be 284km, but the political round-trip seems far longer for the ANC — and perhaps for the country. The ruling party must move from its policy conference last month to its decision-making conference in December, then back to the halls of government.
Two thousand Indian schoolchildren began a televised battle on Saturday night to win five scholarships to English universities, in the first instalment of a new prime-time show tipped to grip the nation this summer. Broadcasters expect <i>Scholar Hunt: Destination UK</i> to attract large Saturday-night audiences.
Swedish anti-copyright website the Pirate Bay has been targeted by police before — most notably last year when it was shut down for three days. But this week it survived a different sort of challenge, after reports emerged suggesting that officials in Stockholm were considering whether to add it to the country’s internet child-abuse blacklist.
A South African drug dealer who tried to peddle his wares to undercover police was arrested while wearing a T-shirt proclaiming "True champions don’t do drugs and crime", a newspaper said on Friday. The 27-year-old thought he had found new clients and led the officers straight to a stash of marijuana and Mandrax tablets.
<i>Mail & Guardian</i> writers look at the best of the real-life dramas on show at the Encounters South African Documentary Festival.
A motivational essay by Sharon Farr gives the filmmaker’s reasons for making a documentary about Bram Fischer. Here is an extract.
More than four-and-a half thousand people have applied to take part in a joint Russian-European venture in which six people will be locked inside a mock spacecraft for 520 days to simulate an expedition to Mars. Russia’s space agency is sifting through piles of applications from would-be astronauts.
The electoral campaign started ahead of schedule in Sierra Leone. It was due to start last week Tuesday, but by last Saturday the ruling Sierra Leone Peoples Party was already holding rallies all over the capital, Freetown. Saturday was the last day for political parties to register for the August presidential elections.
It has been the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>’s view always that the South African Communist Party has more historical credibility than any other opposition party. Its positive influence on the country’s history is undeniable and its policy positions and leaders must be taken seriously. It is the future of the SACP we worry about.
<i>Mail & Guardian</i> writers look at the best of the real-life dramas on show at this year’s Encounters South African Documentary Festival.
Floods caused by abnormally heavy rains have affected nearly 7Â 000 people in southern Ethiopia, disaster officials said on Wednesday. "Almost 7Â 000 people are already affected by the floods caused by heavy rains in the south of the country for more than a week, especially in the Omo region," said Sisay Tadesse, spokesperson for the Ethiopian Agency for Disaster Prevention.