South African banking group Absa cautioned on Thursday that its headline earnings for the second half of the year could be somewhat lower than that achieved in the first six months. The group’s earnings for the first half of the year ended June were up 22,4% to R3,46-billion compared to pro forma earnings of R2,83-billion for the corresponding period of the previous financial year.
At last — leadership from President Thabo Mbeki on a crisis that, by his own admission, has gripped the ruling African National Congress for two years. He told his party’s warring factions to stop putting petty turf battles before the real work of development. He asked what ANC branches were doing to ensure the provision of decent sanitation and adequate water supplies.
Resources group Kumba on Wednesday reported a 61% leap in headline earnings per share to 508 cents for the six months ended in June. This was achieved on the back of 32% growth in revenue to R6,9-billion from a restated R5,247-billion for the previous comparable half-year.
South Africa’s Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) reported on Wednesday that a raid took place last week by four Zimbabwe police officers on the office of its counterpart, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). Cosatu said the policemen confiscated over 2 000 flyers which contained information about the ZCTU’s campaign against high taxation.
Wild buffalo have taken over a small town in Canada’s far north, but unlike stray cats, pigeons, and other nuisance animals, these massive bovine pests can smash a truck, a local official said on Tuesday. The so-called wood bison wandered into Fort Providence in the North-west Territories in May.
Kumba Resources will meet with striking trade unions on Wednesday to discuss a final revised wage-settlement offer made by the resources company on Thursday and Friday last week. The unions involved are National Union of Mineworkers, Solidarity, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and the Building, Allied, Mining and Construction Workers’ Union.
A raft of measures announced by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe this week will not resolve the country’s six-year economic crisis and at best could only restore a modicum of viability to exporters such as gold miners, analysts have told independent news service <i>ZimOnline</i>.
Suspected Islamic militants staged about 40 bomb and arson attacks in Thailand’s Muslim-majority southern provinces late on Tuesday, injuring at least one, officials said. The attacks struck government and civilian targets including the homes of local officials and a train station in Thailand’s three restive provinces along the southern border with Malaysia, they said.
Telkom’s tariffs are 2,1% lower overall as from Tuesday. On June 5, Telkom filed price adjustments with the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa, which were subsequently approved. Steven Hayward, Telkom’s managing executive for retail marketing, said that although the net impact of the proposed prices will vary, the overall effect will be a reduction in cost.
Denmark’s train network on Monday was thrown into chaos by a pigeon that alighted on a high-tension electricity wire, causing a short-circuit that brought services to a standstill throughout the country, the national rail company (DSB) said.
<i>Terminator</i> star Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday gave Tony Blair a few suggestions for when he says "Hasta la vista" to being British prime minister. The Hollywood actor, now the Republican Governor of California, was asked if he had any tips for Blair, with whom he signed a partnership agreement to tackle global warming.
Media and entertainment group Johnnic Communications (Johncom) announced on Monday that it had terminated the employment of its suspended CEO Connie Molusi forthwith, saying it had lost confidence in him. "The board of directors of Johncom has lost confidence in its chief executive officer, Mr Connie Molusi," the group said in a terse statement to the JSE.
The tax amnesty for small businesses — as promulgated by the President on July 25 this year and contained in the Small Business Tax Amnesty and Amendment of Taxation Laws Act — takes effect on Tuesday. The amnesty will introduce a window of opportunity to a wide spectrum of small businesses in South Africa to regularise their tax affairs.
During July, the risks facing South African consumers increased immediately after producer inflation came in worse than expected at 7,5% from just 5,9% in May. Now the South African Reserve Bank needs to be cautious in not adopting a too-tight monetary policy in the current environment.
The United Nations Security Council on Monday passed a resolution ordering Iran to halt its controversial nuclear work by August 31 or face possible sanctions. Resolution 1Â 696 expresses "serious concern" at Iran’s refusal to comply with International Atomic Energy Agency orders to halt uranium enrichment and other nuclear work.
While conditions remain for a possible investor-led — and probably short-lived — return to levels of more than $700 before year-end, there are more substantial grounds for gold prices to drift sideways to down over the year, Natexis Commodity Markets said in its precious-metals outlook on Monday.
Members of the trade union Solidarity on Monday joined striking National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) members at mining group Kumba. Solidarity held mandate meetings with its members earlier in the day and a salary offer received from Kumba on Friday was rejected.
South Africa recorded a deficit of R4,219-billion for its trade with non-Southern African Customs’ Union trading partners in June after a deficit of R7,005-billion in May, according to customs and excise figures released on Monday. The trade balance was expected to have narrowed to a R2,5-billion deficit in June, a survey has found.
Leaders of Zimbabwe’s opposition political parties, civic society and churches have called for "democratic confrontation and mass resistance" to force President Robert Mugabe to accept sweeping political reforms, raising the stakes in the troubled Southern African country.
South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) says it will try to establish exactly which Members of Parliament are — or were — indebted to Parliament for the improper use of air travel vouchers. Chief whip Douglas Gibson said it appeared that some thought the scandal should be swept under the carpet.
Presidency official Titus Mafolo was free to join "any organisation" of his choice as a citizen, says South African Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Responding to a question from Democratic Alliance MP OM Thetjeng on Monday who asked whether the "Native Club" was a presidential initiative or was government funded, she said the club was not an initiative of the president.
India’s President Abdul Kalam says he has not seen a movie for 50 years because he spends so much time reading scientific literature, a report said on Monday. "You won’t believe it but it’s true," Kalam (74) told Radio Kashmir in a weekend visit to revolt-hit Indian Kashmir, <i>The Hindu</i> newspaper reported.
A passenger was escorted off a Tokyo-bound plane in Hong Kong after she refused to put her Gucci handbag under the seat, disrupting the flight for more than an hour, a report said on Monday. The Cathay Pacific plane was ready to take off but was forced to stop on the runway because the young passenger would not listen to a flight attendant’s request, the <i>Apple Daily</i> reported.
Five years ago, in an article titled "Scent of the plague", published in the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> (June 29 2001), I summarised my experiences as a doctor working in a health service faced with the plague of HIV infection among children in South Africa. I wrote about how difficult it was to break the news of a deadly infection to the parents, whose likely HIV status was revealed by the illness of their baby.
Healthcare workers Initiative: Weak healthcare systems and a shortage of healthcare workers are undermining efforts to deliver anti-retroviral drugs to Africa, Kevin de Cock, director of the HIV/Aids Department at the World Health Organisation (WHO), said last week.
I woke at dawn and leapt out of bed in my usual energetic way. As I started to move around I wondered why my legs felt so stiff. I had promised to start going to gym, but had put off the evil moment repeatedly, with all sorts of valid and tear jerking excuses. But the fact is that I could not blame a new gym regime for the stiffness in my muscles.
Sibongile Mazibuko is used to stress. She had better be, because she is in charge of making sure Johannesburg is ready and able to host the World Cup in four years’ time. But if she is taking strain, her voice certainly doesn’t show it when she makes time for a hurried interview with the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>.
At least 51 people were killed, many of them children, in an Israeli air blitz on the Lebanese village of Qana on Sunday, triggering outrage across the region and warnings of retribution for Israel’s "war crime". In Beirut, a mob of angry demonstrators smashed into the United Nations building as thousands took to the streets in protest.
A little over a year ago, Absa unclipped its sock-suspenders and stepped gingerly into the synthetic amniotic goo of the rebirthing pool. A branding guru stood nearby, revelling in his essences by smelling his armpits, while a swathe of Johannesburg copywriters hovered anxiously behind him, holding bundles of swaddling clothes and invoices.
Battering one another with a dead eel has been a favoured old tradition in one British town for decades, but a new ban has curtailed the fishy fun and sparked local anger, British newspapers reported on Saturday. "Conger cuddling" has been staged annually in Lyme Regis on the southern English coast for 32 years to raise money for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution charity.
The United States military said on Saturday it had captured four suspected al-Qaeda operatives in a raid on their hideout in eastern Afghanistan. There were no casualties on either side during the operation conducted early on Saturday in Sal Kalay village in Khost province near the Pakistan border, it said in a statement.
Zimbabwe Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa on Thursday asked Parliament to approve a Z$327,2-trillion supplementary budget — more than twice the amount of money the government had initially said it would spend in 2006. Murerwa had at the beginning of the year set the Budget for 2006 at Z$123,9-trillion.