First National Bank, a division of FirstRand, has launched its new cellphone banking offering, making every handset in South Africa a banking channel. The new service uses SMS technology for customers to conclude banking transactions, increasing mass-market reach and adding functionality.
There is a global consensus on the importance of developing trade and the fact that only the World Trade Organisation (WTO), by realising the November 2001 Doha Development Agenda, can push through the development-friendly reforms that are urgently needed. World Trade Organisation secretary general Supachai Panitchpakdi argues that only the WTO can facilitate fair trade.
Local mobile operator MTN announced on Tuesday that it has joined the Proudly South African campaign. As its members, the campaign lists a number of the country’s original initiatives, companies and organisations — both civil and corporate — who have all pledged to serve the citizens of South Africa with the best products and services.
As Prince Charles prepares for his second marriage, the glamour, tragedy and soap opera of his first are bursting back into life — in dance. <i>Diana the Princess</i>, a ballet by Danish choreographer Peter Schaufuss, opened on Tuesday at Manchester’s Palace Theatre, more than 300km from Buckingham Palace. But it has already created a buzz among royal-watchers.
Zimbabwe’s ministry of foreign affairs confirmed on Monday that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum will not be invited to observe the country’s election in three weeks’ time. The forum — comprising representatives of all SADC states, including Zimbabwe — has traditionally observed elections in SADC countries.
A seven-year-old Jordanian boy stole his father’s hard-earned salary to buy prepaid phone cards to vote for his favourite female candidate on a television reality show, Petra news agency reported on Sunday. The boy was enamoured by Algerian candidate Salma al-Ghazali, who appears on the <i>Star Academy</i> reality show.
South African gold-mining group Harmony has been granted a licence to develop a mine at Papua New Guinea’s Hidden Valley project. The licence was granted after a comprehensive licensing process, including intensive reviews of all of Harmony’s environmental plans under Papua New Guinea’s newly enacted, strict environmental legislation.
Niche banking group Investec will open an office in Knysna this week, to provide specialised services in the Garden Route area, announced Andy Vogel, Investec regional manager for the Eastern Cape. The specialist investment banking group will offer a number of services from its private client division.
Naming your school after socks (yes, the ones you wear on your feet) may not inspire much confidence that it’s a place that takes itself seriously. But not even the smelliest hosiery is likely to bring down the Makause Combined School outside Witbank in Mpumalanga, writes Ufrieda Ho
Zimbabwe’s prospects of attracting new mining investment inflows have been dealt a crippling blow by the government’s decision to sweep aside international agreements that permitted a major platinum producer to use its current export earnings to help fund its continuing capital developments. Last week, platinum producers lost their rights to hold the proceeds of their mining activities in offshore bank accounts.
Swedish public television (SVT) mistakenly published an obituary for Pope John Paul II on its website, where it remained for more than five hours before it was taken down, the broadcasting company said on Friday. "This was a very unfortunate mistake," SVT spokesperson Johanna Niemi said.
A Jewish settlement security chief was caught red-handed stealing thousands of chickens in the West Bank with two Palestinian accomplices disguised in carnival masks overnight, police said on Friday. The 42-year-old man was arrested along with a 20-year-old fellow settler and two Palestinians from east Jerusalem, said Israeli police.
The recent appointment of Lazarus Zim as CEO of Anglo American South Africa and the subsequent reshuffling of reporting lines have rightly raised questions about his overall influence and responsibility. It also makes one wonder if white executives now see the globe as their new playground. Another question raised was why was Zim not offered a seat on Anglo’s newly-created executive board?
A confidential report on the abuse of MPs’ travel vouchers currently being considered by a special parliamentary task team lends new weight to calls for legal action against Bathong Travel, the only agency implicated in the scandal which has not yet faced liquidation or criminal charges.
In a stinging critique of the British government’s Commission for Africa initiative, the NGO Action Aid cautions Prime Minister Tony Blair that the first step in supporting Africa’s development "must be to do it no harm". The NGO acknowledges Blair’s "good intentions", but derides United Kingdom policy and practice. Africa’s problems have constituted complex barriers to development that it cannot tackle alone.
I watched the first episode of the new SABC3 weekly newspaper drama, <i>Hard Copy</i>, with more than a modicum of interest. I’d heard there’d been some squabbling between the SABC and e.tv, each one claiming it first thought up the idea of a programme set in a local newspaper. In fact, SABC television wins hands down with <i>Final Edition</i>, aired 18 years ago.
President Thabo Mbeki’s announcement of the retirement of Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson means there will be a new incumbent by the second half of this year. He or she will inherit a right mess. A few weeks ago it might have been hoped, thanks to the adroit handling of the African National Congress’s January 8 statement by Judge Chaskalson, that the crisis had passed …
Uganda is adopting sexual abstinence-only programmes financed by the United States that could undo its successes. Human Rights Watch warns that the new policies, which promote abstinence until marriage rather than condom use, leave not only young unmarried people but also women married to unfaithful men without the knowledge they need to protect themselves from infection.
Wealthy nations must “fulfil their pledges” to increase aid to developing countries to meet the United Nations millennium development goals – including curbing the spread of HIV – within the next decade, according to a report Investing in Development. The report will be presented to the Group of Eight industrialised nations at its meeting in July and to the UN General Assembly in September.
A Swiss musician sees colours when she hears music, and experiences tastes ranging from sour and bitter to low-fat cream and mown grass, astounded scientists say. Zurich University neuropsychologists were so intrigued by the case of ES — whose full name has been withheld — that they recruited her for a year-long inquiry.
The Burmese python is able to boost the size of its heart chambers by half in order to help it digest a big meal, thanks to a remarkable protein that expands cardiac muscle, researchers say. The reptile’s "extraordinarily rapid" increase in heart size enables it to cope with a 40-fold rise in metabolic rate during digestion.
A Norwegian couple survived unscathed when a 40-tonne tank taking part in an international military exercise in central Norway ran over and crushed their car, military sources said on Thursday. "The accident is being investigated by military police. It is too early to say how this could have happened," a military spokesperson said.
So intense is the emotion surrounding land claims against the Kruger National Park that after our recent front-page story on the issue, one community leader indicated he would be calling for the head of South African National Parks (SANParks) spokesperson Wanda Mkutshulwa. Mkutshulwa’s crime had been to warn that the validation of the 37 claims could threaten Kruger’s survival.
Transnet subsidiary Petronet is to spend at least R3-billion on a new pipeline to move petrol, diesel and jet fuel from Durban to Gauteng, in a move that is expected to shake up a fuel market still shaped by apartheid-era logistical constraints. Gas and liquid fuels transport capacity is among the most contested issues in the local industry.
A woman has filed a lawsuit against the United States city of Norwalk for exposure to her colleagues’ perfumes and colognes, alleging officials have failed to lessen her exposure to such scents in the town clerk’s office and that she is being harrassed. She is also seeking an unspecified amount of monetary damages and attorney’s fees.
The Cursing Stone of Carlisle was intended simply as an innocent community art project, harking back to the British city’s colourful past. But following floods, disease and a string of other local misfortunes, town elders are considering whether the £10 000 (R110 000) art work should be removed and destroyed, a report said on Wednesday.
An Iranian woman is trying to set a legal precedent by divorcing her husband because he has not showered for more than a year, a press report said on Wednesday. The 36-year-old woman, only identified as Mina, reportedly told a Tehran court that her husband, Reza, smells so bad that even his children will not go near him.
Namibia is feeling the pinch of providing treatment to civil servants living with HIV/Aids.
Farmer body Grain South Africa (GSA) on Wednesday warned farmers against the illegal use of water in terms of the National Water Act No 36 of 1998. GSA chairperson Bully Botma said the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry has estimated that up to 70% of water use along the mid and lower Vaal river system is illegal.
Tony Leon, leader of the Democratic Alliance, writes for the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> on the debate in Parliament two weeks ago about President Thabo Mbeki’s State of the Nation address, which "contained two parallel debates — one looking back at the past, the other focused on the future".
A Florida man got a rude awakening when he found a 2m-long python in his potty, rearing its diamond-shaped head out of the toilet bowl, the <i>St Petersburg Times</i> reported on Thursday. Shannon Scavotto immediately grabbed his camera phone, snapped a few shots and called for help.
Two Turkish prison inmates, who drilled a 9cm-wide aperture between their cells enabling them to have sexual relations in prison that produced a child, received four-month sentences for damaging public property, press reports said on Sunday. The pair managed to drive the hole through their concrete communal cell wall.