South African financial services group African Life Assurance Company on Tuesday reported a 37% increase in headline earnings per share to 244,2 cents for the year ended March 31, from 178,4 cents a year ago. A strong performance from African Life Health helped increase operating profit by 28% to R226,7-million.
Although the South African Chamber of Business’s (Sacob) business confidence index (BCI) eased for the third consecutive month, the May level of 127 was little changed from the readings in April, March and February. Sacob said this could imply that the BCI has reached a plateau from which it may drift downwards.
Britain announced on Monday that it is shelving plans for a referendum on the European Union Constitution until its fate becomes clearer, driving another stake into the heart of the beleaguered treaty. The move was announced by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in a statement to Parliament on Monday.
Clients of South African internet service provider Internet Solutions (IS) are worried that the internet service provider either has been hacked or is choosing to censor its users, <i>ITWeb</i> reported on Monday. <i>ITWeb</i> received complaints from IS users who have been unable to access adult-related websites and chat rooms.
Taxis with "unlucky" number plates in Shanghai will stop operating during university entrance exams this week to appease superstitious parents, state media said on Monday. "Lots of parents refuse to use cabs with number plates they consider unlucky," said Zhao Leping, head of the Shanghai Dazhong taxi company.
Indian Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav is beaming after a doll in his likeness has been snapped up from toy stores in the state of Bihar where he will soon contest elections. The plump doll, called Lalooji, sports a mop of white hair and is clothed in the politician’s trademark white kurta pajamyas.
South African telecommunications group Telkom on Monday reported a 53% increase in its basic earnings per share for the year ended March 2005 to 1 241,8 cents, from 812 cents in the previous comparative period. Profit for the period increased to R6,807-billion, from R4,592-billion in the 2004 financial year.
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.
A Malaysian family was horrified to discover their maid had spiked their drinking water with soiled diapers and sanitary pads as a magic charm to ensure they were nice to her, reports said on Friday. The 26-year-old Indonesian maid was caught on a spy camera that the suspicious family set up at their home in Kuala Lumpur.
Hospital bosses in Britain were meeting on Friday to discuss a controversial move to ban Bibles from patients’ bedsides after they were decreed not only insensitive to other religions but also a health risk. Gideons International, the organisation that distributes Bibles to hospitals, has condemned the mooted move as "outrageous".
A bone found on a British beach has sparked renewed interest in one of the country’s most curious myths — that a monkey washed ashore during the Napoleonic Wars was executed by suspicious locals for being a French spy. The discovery has intrigued locals, given the town’s curious folklore.
Japan launched a nationwide probe on Friday into thousands of mysterious, sharp-edged pieces of metal in different sizes found jutting out of roadside guardrails across the country. Japanese media have been debating whether the shards were planted by pranksters or if they could all have been formed by car fragments in crashes.
A few weeks back, I mentioned that I had been playing with a Blackberry and promised to come back to you once I had done a bit more rigorous testing on it. I have. In the meantime, I have also had the chance to try out the Nokia 9500 — a new-generation smart phone that oozes a stylish charm and screams "Open me, open me" when you look at it.
Organisers at the World Economic Forum meeting in Cape Town were tallying up on Friday morning the number of signatures of business leaders endorsing the recommendations of the Commission for Africa. "It’s looking good," said Africa Economic Summit spokesperson Matthias Luefkens.
Vodacom, in partnership with United Kingdom-based virtual network operator Virgin Group, late on Thursday confirmed their intention to launch a joint bid for a major shareholding in mobile operator V-Mobile Nigeria. The partners said their intention is to bring together their extensive expertise in the mobile telephony market.
Schabir Shaik’s trial, the Oilgate controversy and the intense public debate over the Telkom empowerment process have focused attention on whether the Malaysian model — with its interpenetration of politics and economic empowerment — is being duplicated here.
A Namibian legal activist has expressed dismay that controversy raging in South Africa over the efficacy of vitamins as a treatment for HIV/Aids has reached his country. Delme Cupido, coordinator for the Aids Law Unit of Legal Assistance Centre — a Namibian public-interest law centre — wrote a letter published in <i>The Namibian</i> newspaper.
Despite what conspiracy theorists might be thinking, the dog poo found last week under Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s seat in Parliament was not placed there by goons in the employ of disgruntled African National Congress MPs. The police have established that the guilty party was a security officer and his dog, and if the police say it, especially if it’s about their employers, it must be true.
The devastating judgement in the Schabir Shaik corruption case has forced the spotlight directly on to Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who has effectively been found guilty of corruption, though he was not an accused.
Based on a World Economic Forum (WEF) study of 1Â 552 African-based companies presented at the Africa Economic Summit in Cape Town on Thursday, South African companies appear to be leading the way in the response to HIV/Aids, with up to 91% having an HIV/Aids policy in place, the WEF said in a statement.
South Africa’s fixed-line monopoly Telkom will, with effect from August 1, cut ADSL and data prices — with the entry-level internet access product down to R270 per month, the dual-listed telecommunications group announced on Thursday. The company said this form part of its plan to reduce the cost of speedy internet service.
It was an agony drawn out over three days under the glare of TV coverage. Because of ill-health, Judge Hillary Squires’s clinical and devastating demolition of Schabir Shaik was delivered in long volleys, punctuated by overnight breaks when the accused had ample time to contemplate the unfolding nightmare.
This is the second part of a deeply disturbed and happy film geek and horror fan’s quick and nasty look over what is locally a mostly unknown and underrated genre. I’ve discovered that there’s no way in hell I can honestly detail horror film from 1960 to now in one 1 200-word column, and do justice to what I’m writing about.
There should be no rejoicing over the guilty judgement in the trial of businessman Schabir Shaik, despite its vindication of South Africa’s prosecutorial and judicial systems. Deputy President Jacob Zuma may not have been in the dock, but the judgement indirectly indicts him in such a devastating way that it is hard to see how his political career can survive it.
Financial services and life assurance giant Sanlam said on Wednesday it has achieved sound operating results for the first four months of the year, with most of the major businesses improving on their 2004 performance and net operating profit up by more than 10% on the restated results for the same period last year.
Listed investment holding group Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI) has increased its holding to approximately 40% in Johnnic Holdings following the latest acquisition of an additional 16,5-million shares in the company. HCI said in a statement on Friday that it had paid 975 cents per share for the additional stake.
To become a cleric in the Orthodox Church in Greece, it’s necessary to be a man, single or married — but not, heaven forbid, a politician, an actor or a gynaecologist. The church’s ruling synod says that people from certain professions will make most unsuitable clergymen.
One of Britain’s least-known yet most dangerous sporting events took place on Monday with a lower-than-usual toll of injuries. Only three people broke bones during the annual cheese-rolling race at Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire, central England, where competitors pelt recklessly down a steep slope in pursuit of a large, round cheese.
An adolescent running away after a furious row with his father is nothing unusual. Unfortunately, if you’re a four-year-old colobus monkey, you can’t just telephone for a lift home later once tempers have cooled. The rare black-and-white colobus male is still on the loose after escaping from his enclosure, reports said on Tuesday.
He may be leader of the world’s second-largest economy, but Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi conceded on Tuesday that his powers stop at imposing fashion. Koizumi has encouraged his Cabinet to take off their ties and jackets this summer to save electricity on air conditioning.
South Africa’s real gross domestic product (GDP) at market prices on a quarter-on-quarter seasonally annualised and adjusted basis rose by 3,5% in the first quarter of 2005, from 4% in the fourth quarter of 2004, Statistics South Africa said on Tuesday. The figure is "obviously less than what we expected", economists said.
African business leaders attending this week’s World Economic Forum (WEF) for Africa will come up with ways to back a British plan for massive aid for the continent whose fate is to be decided at the Group of Eight summit in July, organisers said on Friday. The 15th WEF for Africa meeting will feature a strong South African presence.