South African health and life insurer Discovery and its existing United Kingdom joint venture partner Prudential have announced plans to enhance their relationship through the roll-out of life-assurance products into the British market, it was announced on Thursday.
Impala Platinum (Implats), the world’s second-largest platinum producer, says it has won the Business Map Foundation’s award for black economic empowerment (BEE) deal of the year for its transaction with the Royal Bafokeng nation. The deal saw Implats swap a royalty agreement with the country’s richest tribe for an equity stake in the company.
Celebrity ex-wives will urge anguished divorcees to burn their wedding gowns in an act of liberation as part of a new series planned for Dutch and French television. <i>Ex-Wives Club</i> will see three famous divorcees advise other women on how to get over their break-up, Dutch programme makers RTL said on Tuesday.
Japan’s chief weatherman bowed in apology on Wednesday after a computer glitch meant that Tokyo will have to wait a few days longer than expected to revel under the cherry blossoms. The cherry blossoms bloom for less than a week every year, a rite of spring that is an excuse for nationwide debauchery.
A man accused of drunken driving and crashing his truck into a lamp post told police a unicorn had been at the wheel when it careered off the road, Los Angeles media reported on Wednesday. Phillip Holliday (42) appeared before a court in the western state of Montana on Tuesday, the <i>Billings Gazette</i> reported.
An Australian gambler is suing a casino for tens of millions of dollars for allegedly luring him back to the gaming tables after he had banned himself from the premises. Harry Kakavas is claiming Aus$30-million (about R170-million) he says he lost playing baccarat at Melbourne’s Crown Casino in a 14-month spree — plus damages.
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=cwc_home"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/300732/Icon_CWC.gif" align=left border=0></a>A Bangladeshi firm has sent what it says is the world’s biggest cricket bat on a signature tour to drum up support for the national team at the Caribbean World Cup, a company official said on Thursday. The 22m-long bat has been signed by thousands since its began its nationwide journey from the northern city of Rangpur.
We have a difficult past as South Africans. We’ve had conflict for 360 years, possibly more, and this was so because colonialism had to find its full sway and that took easily 200 years, followed by another 150 years of conflict, essentially over gold and diamonds. And in that process many people’s lives were trampled upon and we ended up with what I will call a "last fling", writes Dikgang Moseneke.
North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator has snubbed the chief United Nations nuclear inspector by claiming he was too busy to meet him during the International Atomic Energy Agency’s first trip to Pyongyang since being thrown out of the country four years ago.
Proudly South African investment in domestic equities is a paying proposition by a huge margin. The trouble is, not enough South Africans think so and consistently lose out — never more so than in the past three years. In the first eight weeks of 2007 alone, foreigners accumulated a net R20-billion in South African shares.
Syria is hailing its return from international isolation with a landmark visit on Wednesday by the European Union’s foreign policy chief as diplomacy in the Middle East intensifies ahead of a key Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia at the end of this month.
Just when you thought you had acquired the knack of asking for a grande skim white chocolate caffé mocha or a Venti peppermint soy extra-hot sugar-free cinnamon latte, Starbucks has to go and raise the stakes. The company that turned ordering a cup of coffee into an assault course of choice has announced it is extending its Seattle savvy into the music business.
Britain called on Tuesday for a "very robust international response" against the Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s government for its brutal crackdown on the opposition. "The situation is appalling. I condemn last Sunday’s beatings and arrest of opposition leaders," junior Foreign Office Minister David Triesman.
Tuberculosis cases are rising rapidly in the Mozambican coastal town of Beira, according to local doctors. The city of half a million, which is the capital of the country’s most HIV/Aids-affected province, logged 2 736 new TB cases last year, a 5% increase from 2005. ”.
Gladwell Otieno is the executive director for the Africa Centre for Open Governance, based in Kenya. An uncompromising anti-corruption campaigner, she attended the Africa Forum on Fighting Corruption that recently took place in Johannesburg. Haydée Bangerezako spoke to her about continental anti-corruption efforts.
Google on Monday added details of WWF environmental projects to its popular global online mapping service. The Mountain View, California, internet search powerhouse wove WWF images, information and website links into its popular Google Earth program.
United States entertainment giant Viacom on Tuesday launched a billion-dollar lawsuit against Google and its affiliate YouTube, accusing the video-sharing website of "massive" copyright infringement. The suit seeks more than $1-billion in damages, as well as an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from further infringements.
Modern humans were living in Northern Africa far earlier than previously thought, according to scientists. A new analysis of a 160 000-year-old fossilised jawbone from Morocco shows that the homo sapiens in the area had started having long childhoods, one of the hallmarks of humans living today.
A newly discovered letter by Adolf Hitler’s architect and armaments minister Albert Speer offers proof that he knew about the plans to exterminate the Jews. Writing in 1971 to Hélène Jeanty, the widow of a Belgian resistance leader, Speer admitted that he had been at a conference where Heinrich Himmler had unveiled plans to exterminate the Jews.
Her multiple skills make it rather difficult to describe her in just one word. And in trying to capture the essence of who she really is, one would need a dozen superlatives. Her name is Judy Nwokedi, a sportsperson, psychologist, health activist, media specialist, filmmaker … the list goes on and on.
The Woolworths Trust EduPlant has launched its 2007 programme with a series of free, empowering workshops that will help educators to create food-rich, sustainable environments at schools. Coordinated by Food and Trees For Africa, Woolworths Trust EduPlant is offering a programme that promotes and supports schools to grow good food, using resource-efficient permaculture techniques.
A German court was forced on Monday to postpone the end of a civil case featuring Gustav the ostrich whose owner claims was made impotent by firecrackers thrown into his enclosure. The court in the eastern town of Bautzen had hoped to find an agreement between the owner and three teenagers suspected of throwing the fireworks in 2005.
A Chinese lawmaker has proposed a "dog tax" to help discourage skyrocketing ownership of the pets and pay for faeces clean-up and rabies prevention, state media reported on Monday. Dog ownership is on the rise in China as urbanites find room in their increasingly comfortable lives for the status symbol of a pet.
South Africa’s Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) has scored a major breakthrough with the taxi business fraternity in what could culminate in the registration of more than 40Â 000 taxi operators in Gauteng alone, according to a release from the Labour Department on Monday.
If it turns out that your second-hand car is a stolen vehicle and you have an accident, your insurance policy will not pay out and you will probably lose your car, along with the hard-earned cash you paid for it. But, by conducting some simple background checks, prior to purchase, you can ensure that you aren’t left out-of-pocket.
Children infected with HIV at birth are surviving into adolescence, overturning the assumption that virtually all die before the age of five, doctors working in Zimbabwe will reveal this week. But because the children’s growth has been stunted they face particular difficulties as they enter puberty, which are not being tackled.
Did Rasool oil hospital deal? This was the headline of a story we published on January 26, to which Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool took great umbrage. In his right to reply, granted by our ombud Franz Krüger, Rasool said the story played into racist stereotypes of Africans, writes Ferial Haffajee, the editor of the <i>Mail & Gurdian</i>.
Positive prospects in the growth category of the collective investment industry have been confirmed by the latest economic data, says Stanlib, the country’s largest unit-trust company. "The figures were ahead of expectations," says Richard Middleton, manager of the Stanlib Capital Growth Fund and head of the Stanlib growth franchise.
Franchising is one of the most popular business models in the world today, with its ability to duplicate existing successful small businesses in different locations and with different owners. It is especially popular among entrepreneurs who are going into business for the first time, as there is a considerable amount of training and support available.
Reports suggesting that Iran has sought Saudi help in mediating its nuclear and other disputes with the Bush administration are wide of the mark. When President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad travelled to Riyadh at the weekend, he had a wholly different object in view: wrecking the ostensibly anti-Iranian coalition of "moderate" Arab states, plus Israel, painstakingly assembled by the United States in recent months.
Govin Reddy is in charge of managing the way 1,1-billion people perceive South Africa. Despite this, he’s relaxed enough to extend a hearty handshake and joke about not wearing a tie when we meet at the International Marketing Council’s offices in Houghton. As the IMC’s new country director for India, Reddy is back in Jo’burg for just two weeks to meet with the head office and other country directors.
Diego Pitzalis has owned and run a Fego’s coffee shop in Rosebank for the past eight years. He shares his experience of franchising with the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>.