In the midst of our middle-class economic boom it is easy to delude ourselves that other South Africans are thriving. The Reserve Bank’s quarterly bulletin will no doubt fuel the optimistic view of a country poised for "unprecedented" growth and prosperity. If that is true, that is good news. But other developments on the employment front suggest there is no reason to celebrate yet.
South African economists have reacted to South Africa’s consumer price index excluding mortgage rate changes (CPIX) for February. CPIX was up 3,1% year-on-year for metro and other areas in February. "The figure is pretty much as expected, but the main concern is on the outlook for the next few months," said one economist.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/199502/Zim_icon.GIF" align=left>Zimbabwe police on Tuesday arrested six youths for distributing fake flyers calling for an opposition boycott of elections in what an activist said may have been a ruling-party tactic to deter voters. "Boycott polls: we are not participating because Zanu-PF have failed to implement the SADC [Southern African Development Community] protocol," read the sheets.
"As you may or may not know, the world has been arbitrarily divided up into "zones" in which movies and DVDs are released. Each zone often has its own release dates, and on top of that, each local zone has a unique kind of "coding" done to all DVD players and media. Why? Very simply, it’s so that the entertainment industry can try to control what you see and when you see it." Ian Fraser investigates.
At 9am on a Monday morning, the used clothing vendors at Chiquelene Market in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, are still unpacking their wares. The sale of clothing donated to charities in Europe and North America has supported Angelina Arnaldo and her seven children for 17 years. On a good day, she takes home around $10. "It’s easier than selling food because it doesn’t go off," she explained.
In the wake of a global record holiday-season online buying spree, South African property is the latest beneficiary of the rush towards cyber-shopping. Saul Geffen, MD of MortgageSA, says: "We have seen a marked increase in South Africans living abroad applying for home financing through the MortgageSA website and through our call centres."
Forget about natural disasters. In Britain, you’re more likely to get your knickers in a knot. There are other perils, including insidious scorpions, nasty hornets and wicked rats. Your house is no haven either…with people hospitalised from accidents in their beds, mainly caused by cigarettes or faulty electric blankets.
Hong Kong prostitutes are using cellular technology to entice clients. Using automated voice messages, they have been sending prospective clients information, such as their addresses and phone numbers. "Our girls are only doing it part-time but you will like them," one message reads.
A man who withheld conjugal relations with his wife for seven years has been forced to pay alimony. The man refused to have sex with his wife after she opposed him in a family argument. The highest Italian appeals court found that the man’s inaction regarding his wife amounted to an "offence to her dignity".
A four-year-old girl in Iceland has found a message in a bottle that was thrown into the sea off the coast of Greenland 18 years ago, Danish media reported on Monday. The message was sent off in the summer of 1987 by a group of youngsters being shuttled by boat to a football match
Necessity is the mother of invention and this is especially true when it comes to party people. A new innovation being launched at the Glastonbury rock music festival will allow revellers to party right through the night without disturbing the neighbours.
What will happen when President Thabo Mbeki goes? Few questions are exercising the political punditocracy as much as this one. Deputy President Jacob Zuma still seems to be the strongest contender for the presidency, even though his financial affairs are central to what is probably the biggest corruption trial of the new South Africa. In this context, the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> recently speculated about the first year of a Zuma presidency.
Have you ever stopped to think how many minutes a day you are in contact with no textiles, the fabric of your sofa, bed linen, towels, clothing? Or wondered how these things are produced, and what happens to them when they are discarded? The Cleaner Textile Production Project is quickly addressing the areas of greatest negative impacts, working with cotton growers and textile manufacturers.
One full day’s production has been lost as a result of a strike by 21Â 000 workers at Harmony gold mines in the Free State. Although one official statement from Harmony says the strike has to do with unresolved issues, chief executive Bernard Swanepoel acknowledged that retrenchment notices triggered the strike.
South Africa’s mining industry looked set for further disruption on Wednesday as more than 20 000 members of the National Union of Mineworkers planned to down tools at Harmony’s Virginia, Free State, mine. This follows the impending closure of Durban Roodepoort Deep’s North West operations, which will cost 6 000 jobs.
Good quality refurbished PCs can be a viable technology choice — and sometimes even preferable to lower-quality new PCs. That’s one of the key findings of a total cost of ownership study into new and refurbished PCs by South African-based research consultancy Open Research.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/199502/Zim_icon.GIF" align=left>Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, on the campaign trail ahead of next week’s parliamentary polls, on Wednesday accused former minister Jonathan Moyo of plotting a military coup to unseat him. Meanwhile, the huge numbers of British-based Zimbabwean exiles will watch the elections in their home country with keen interest.
Six days before Zimbabweans go the polls, it is safe to predict that Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF will take the election — despite the Movement for Democratic Change’s (MDC) spirited, if belated, campaign. Even the MDC seems to have accepted the inevitable, as suggested by the party’s T-shirt slogan: "Tsvangirai for president in 2008". But the MDC will not be the only loser in this election.
A deadly haemorrhagic fever that has claimed the lives of 96 people, mainly children, in Angola’s northern Uige province has been identified as the rare Marburg virus, officials from the ministry of health and the World Health Organisation said late on Tuesday. The illness is from the same family as the deadly Ebola virus.
An Australian magazine has offered to pay $1,25-million to anybody who can prove that there is a Tasmanian tiger still alive in the wilderness. The last Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, is believed to have died in a Hobart zoo in 1936 but since then almost 4 000 sightings of the animal have been reported.
Any visitor to France who thinks the country’s drivers are pushy, rude and prone to parking wherever their cars might conceivably fit had confirmation from an unlikely source this week — the drivers themselves. According to a recent survey, six out of 10 French drivers believe their fellow motorists are impolite and aggressive behind the wheel.
The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) has welcomed the appointment of a one-person commission, to be headed by Judge Sisi Khampepe, to make recommendations on the future of the Scorpions. However, it has backed the incorporation of the unit into the South African Police Service (SAPS).
Notwithstanding important gains for workers and the poor, economically the capitalist class has been the main beneficiary over the past 10 years, according to the African National Congress’s two partners in the tripartite alliance, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).
Mercantile Lisbon Bank Holdings’s shareholders have given the thumbs-up to the bank dropping "Lisbon" from its name to become simply Mercantile Bank Holdings. CEO Dave Brown says the bank wants to break away from the image of being a bank exclusively for the Portuguese community.
Shares in media and entertainment group Johnnic Communications and Naspers fell on Tuesday on the back of different factors, a trader said. "I’d say the fall was unbundling-related for Johncom shares, whereas with Naspers we are seeing a continuation of profit-taking," a trader said.
A fourth-quarter recovery lifted junior miner Western Areas’ year-end results into the black for the 12 months ended December. The group said on Tuesday that substantial revaluation gains of R307-million on dollar liabilities (in accordance with AC133) boosted the results of Western Areas for the fourth quarter.
United Kingdom-based resources group Lonmin is considering making an offer to minority shareholders of listed platinum mining operation Messina once its acquisition of the mine is completed, according to CEO Brad Mills. Southern Platinum owns 91,5% of Messina, which operates the Messina platinum mine on the eastern limb of South Africa’s bushveld complex.
"One of the biggest problems locally is the near-total absence of non-corporate media — especially in radio. Just about all the news and info comes from a tiny handful of state or corporation-owned stations. Radio is so cheap that other existing radio stations enjoying their monopoly will never tell you about it." Ian Fraser helps you to be on air within a few hours.
Want to buy a lot of hot air? From April, investors will be able to trade carbon credit notes on the JSE Securities Exchange, as the emissions market contemplated by the Kyoto Protocol comes to life. The protocol, which came into force a month ago this week, sets emission limits for individual countries, and therefore companies.
Wildlife authorities in Australia were hunting on Friday for a saltwater crocodile after police found the ferocious reptile in a home and released it near a popular swimming hole, thinking it was a relatively harmless freshwater croc, national radio reported. A woman called police after finding the crocodile taped up in her laundry.
A British man was cleared on Friday of murdering his father after a court accepted his excuse he was sleepwalking at the time, a highly unusual defence seen just a handful of times in the country’s legal history. Jules Lowe was facing life imprisonment for killing his 83-year-old father in a savage beating at their house in Manchester.
A young black man is painted red and beaten after caught indiscreetly fondling a bottle of Klipdrift brandy in a liquor store in Johannesburg’s notoriously naughty Hillbrow area. What is the pathology behind this? What is going on? What is the hidden symbolism that links violent, pathetic gestures such as the Hillbrow incident?