The retail price of all grades of petrol will rise by 23 cents per litre from Wednesday June 6, the Department of Minerals and Energy announced on Friday. The latest changes bring the retail price for a litre of 95 octane unleaded petrol in Gauteng to R7,24 a litre and to R7 a litre at the coast — the highest to date.
The Zambian government announced on Friday that a much-trumpeted Aids cure that a local businessman claimed to have discovered has been found to be a pesticide used to clean swimming pools. Tetrasil, a drug which is being promoted by a newspaper proprietor, is a pesticide that was used as a disinfectant, said a government specialist in Aids drugs.
United Kingdom power provider Ipsa is making good progress in expanding its portfolio of power generation projects in the Eastern Cape. Two important additions to capacity are now planned at the Elitheni Clean Coal Project and at the combined heat and power project for Da Gama Textiles.
Black Earth Communications turned out to be the second applicant — after the Ndabenhle Group on Wednesday — whose submission imploded at hearings on Thursday by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) into highly lucrative pay-TV licences.
South Africa’s middle class is not easily moved to anger, perhaps because anger requires passion, and passion requires a mind and heart, operating roughly in tandem. It is almost constantly irritable, of course; but pure, white-hot rage seems to be quite beyond the scope of the great Afro-Tuscan and Cape-Venetian wastelands that signify our economic dawn and cultural dusk.
Hysteria and paranoia — two symptoms of a growing political pathology in South Africa that distort the truth, complicate the quest for solutions to problems and inflame the climate of fear, suspicion and acrimony as the ruling party approaches its watershed national conference. Hysteria comes mainly in the form of overheated rhetoric and extravagant ideological mudslinging.
The ANC discussion document titled <i>Economic Transformation for a National Democratic Society</i> captures important shifts initiated by the government in recent years. It rejects market fundamentalism, supports a developmental state, endorses the major public sector-led infrastructure investment programme and affirms the need for state-led industrial policy, writes Jeremy Cronin.
Consumer inflation has breached the Reserve Bank’s upper limit for the first time in 44 months, upping pressure for an interest rate hike next week, and sending the JSE plummeting. CPIX, which is the main consumer inflation indicator, reached 6,3% year-on-year in April, according to figures released recently, while headline CPI reached 7% year on year.
A robot is to be deployed as a security guard at a South Korean school in what its creators claim is a world first, the <i>Korea Times</i> reported on Thursday. The robot, dubbed Ofro, will be posted at a Seoul middle school to test its potential before going on sale.
As the head of a project that wants to take hi-tech into the developing world, Nicholas Negroponte has had to get used to criticism. Over the past two years the One Laptop Per Child initiative, a scheme aimed at building low-cost computers for education in developing countries, has been attacked many times.
Most regard travel insurance as a way of covering the costs should you require medical attention while on holiday. However, it also provides the added benefit of being there for other little mishaps — not necessarily of a medical nature. A basic insurance package can cost as little as R285.
The Competition Commission has recommended to the Competition Tribunal that the sale of Johncom’s effective 38,56% stake in M-Net and SuperSport to Naspers be approved without any conditions. The matter will be set down for hearing by the Competition Tribunal in due course, Johncom said on Thursday.
South Africa’s producer price inflation (PPI) accelerated to 11,1% year-on-year in April after a 10,3% increase in March, far above forecasts, official data showed on Thursday. On a monthly basis, PPI increased by 1,7% after a 1,2% increase in March. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast that annual PPI would come in at 10,4%.
On Wednesday, the third of 12 days of public hearings by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa into the granting of new satellite pay-TV licences to broadcasters, it became obvious that the application of the fifth applicant — the Ndabenhle Group — will most likely be dead in the water.
The Financial Services Board (FSB) has issued a warning to consumers to be cautious when doing financial services business with Blue Pointer and/or Lodewyk Petrus Baartman. The warning was issued in terms of section 10(1)(a) of the Inspection of Financial Institutions Act.
Santam policyholders will not be hit by blanket premium increases this year as South Africa’s largest short-term insurer has been tackling the majority of its policyholders’ individual increases as and when policy renewals arise. Instead, increases will be focused on those with bad claims track records, among others.
The life industry will be extending a lifeline to over-indebted public servants from next month when the National Credit Act comes into full force. From June 1, public servants drowning in debt repayments will be given free access to debt counsellors approved by the National Credit Regulator.
South African lawmakers have given their thumbs up to a proposed law banning parents or guardians from spanking their charges. The law is an attempt to widen a ban on corporal punishment in schools, which was passed several years ago, to the home.
Africa is to enter the era of rolling news this week when CNBC launches the first 24-hour information network dedicated to coverage of news and business on the continent. CNBC Africa is to go on air from Friday from its main studios in Johannesburg and will also take feeds from bureaus in Lagos, Nairobi and London.
The newspaper industry has honoured media veteran Raymond Louw as a Lifetime Achiever at the Mondi Shanduka Newspaper Awards. His name is synonymous with the right to press freedom and <i>The Media</i> thought it fitting to chat to him in May when we celebrate press freedom day.
The blogosphere is more than just a fad. It represents very real competition to traditional media publishers which includes online publishers, writes Matthew Buckland.
Lutz Schniewind, media planner at Universal McCann, explains how to use "word of mouse" to promote an African designer watch for the rich and famous.
Dutch police said on Wednesday they had arrested three men accused of drugging gay men at sex parties, raping them and injecting them with a cocktail of HIV-infected blood. "Two of the suspects have admitted to having injected at least five victims with HIV-infected blood," police spokesperson Sylvia Sanders told Dutch NOS public radio.
Media24’s Africa CEO Douw Steyn, who recently acquired the rights to publish the <i>Idols</i> West Africa magazine, explains the difficulties and rewards of launching titles elsewhere on the continent.
President Thabo Mbeki’s facilitation of political dialogue in Zimbabwe will succeed only if its people show they are serious about finding solutions to that country’s crisis, Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Tuesday in her budget-vote debate in the National Assembly.
A new database intended to help reduce unemployment among science graduates was launched by Science and Technology Minister Mosibudi Mangena in Pretoria on Tuesday. "I have no doubt that what we are engaged in today is a necessary step in the right direction to begin closing the gap of the skills shortage," Mangena said.
South Africa’s real gross domestic product (GDP) at market prices on a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted annualised basis rose by 4,7% in the first quarter of 2007 from 5,6% in the fourth quarter of 2006, Statistics South Africa said on Tuesday. GDP was also reported to have risen 5,4% on a year-on-year basis from a revised 6,2% (6,1%) y/y reported in the fourth quarter last year.
South African short-term insurer Santam said on Tuesday that its overall growth of quality business is in line with expectations for the period, while the underwriting result for the year to date is pleasing. It released an operational update following its annual general meeting on Tuesday.
"Given its historical links with the African, France will always be a valued interlocutor and partner in our efforts to build peace and stability, strengthen democratic governance and foster social and economic development." These were South African President Thabo Mbeki’s words on the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as the new president of France.
She’s known as "Anne Atomique" and the Financial Times lists her as the world’s second-most fashionable business person. Would you expect anything else from the French? But don’t be fooled by the chic exterior. Not yet 50, Anne Lauvergeon’s meteoric rise to the top of the nuclear industry has been made possible by a tough-as-nails, straight-talking approach to government and investors alike.
Cape salmon and kingklip may start disappearing from restaurant menus if linefish stocks continue to be depleted at present rates. Meanwhile, government is considering a suggestion that a crucial marine breeding ground be opened up to community fishing. Scientists say this would further impact on fish stocks.
Ukraine’s president and prime minister will resume talks on Saturday in a bid to defuse an escalating political crisis and settle a dangerous arm-wrestle between the rivals for control of special security forces. President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych met for three hours late on Friday.