Standard Bank has launched a new style investment product, known as a discount share instalment, that is designed to provide investors with a simple, low-cost alternative to buying shares directly in the market. The product is designed to mimic the movement of a range of leading South African shares without having to pay the full purchase price upfront.
It is 2010 and tens of thousands of visitors descend upon Cape Town not only to watch the football but to view the glory of the city and its wondrous mountain. To the shock of those who have come for the first time, the mountain appears to be no more then a residential theme park. This may well have been the position had the Supreme Court of Appeal not delivered a ground-breaking judgement recently.
Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) leader Mangosutho Buthelezi maintained on Friday that irregularities in the last general election "may have robbed the IFP of victory in KwaZulu-Natal". The party withdrew its case in the Electoral Court because it would be difficult to prove, not because it retracted its claims of widespread irregularities, Buthelezi told a rally in Durban.
Every year around 30 000 children are born with HIV/Aids in Mozambique. More than 50% of them die within the first year and the rest usually do not survive their second year. But hope is in sight for Mozambique’s HIV-afflicted children in the form of a new day clinic.
About 1,4-millions Kenyans are short of food, especially in regions affected by prolonged drought, and will require about 85 000 to 90 000 tonnes of aid rations for six months beginning in August, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday.
CareerJunction, an online recruitment service in South Africa, has teamed up with Tiscali UK and i2i Services to provide a job listing board for the United Kingdom market, making it one of the largest job boards in the UK.
The completion of the first phase of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project was celebrated with a colourful shindig in the fresh mountain air of the Lesotho mountains in mid-March. <i>Earthyear</i> asks what is the legacy it leaves behind?
Father’s Day offers an opportunity to reflect on what, in the year 2004, it means to be a good father and a good man. Masculinity and fatherhood are social constructs that have changed dramatically in the past 50 years. By setting out to redefine women’s identity, exponents of the new feminism have also challenged men to redefine themselves.
Legal and financial constraints are preventing millions of black South African township residents from capitalising on their properties, a new study has found. Research has indicated that homes in black townships are worth an estimated R68,3-billion, but the use of residential property to create wealth remains limited.
On Monday Uganda became the latest African country to begin distributing free antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to HIV-positive people.
A multi-faceted approach by major real estate players toward the formal establishment of black estate agents in the traditional residential markets has been called for by Nedbank’s new head of home loans, Lindiwe Kubeka. Previously disadvantaged agents currently account for about five percent of its 40Â 000 estate agents.
A visit to Zimbabwe scheduled for Tuesday by James Morris, the United Nation’s top food aid official, has been called off, UN officials said, in a sign of worsening relations between President Robert Mugabe’s government and the world body. "Unfortunately, due to a cabinet meeting, no government officials are likely to be able to meet with the special envoy," a UN spokesperson said.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=117304">Couple beaten by mob</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=117306">Arms deal raises eyebrows</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=117303">Zimbabwe factions fight over farms</a>
Zimbabwe, China and arms deals, new Iraq torture photos, George Dubya and Michael Moore, headbanging cats, tattoo ratings, what’s really in that hot dog you’re eating, free stuff to download and ways to annoy your public toilet stallmates … Ian Fraser unearths the weird and the wonderful and downright wacky right here on the web.
These images were sent to <i>Earthyear</i> in March by a reader in Cape Town. They were taken by a friend’s husband while he was in Nigeria on business. Apparently the photographs were taken outside a bank in the Victoria Island business area of Lagos. If any of our readers can give us an explanation and / or contacts, please get in touch with <i>Earthyear</i>.
A common veterinary drug has likely exterminated almost all of Asia’s once-abundant vultures over the past few years, say the members of a prominent team of investigators. Scientists from around the world have been scurrying to determine why Asia’s vultures are disappearing.
Activists on Sunday called for a comprehensive audit of Africa’s crippling debt burden, currently estimated at more than $300-billion. The call was made by representatives of social movements from ten African countries, as well as Brazil, Argentina and the Philippines, at the end of a three-day workshop held in Cape Town
The Wizard of the North, who we are flying to see in our flimsy flying flivver, has said that God moves like a crab. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. It is an old Tswana proverb, perhaps. But the wizard is a master of several languages, and anything he says can be said to have several meanings. That is what wizards are for. Even if they don’t know it themselves. That, after all, is why they are wizards.
"As somebody who believes in the importance of social movements and the radical intellectuals who support them, I must admit to be tiring quite quickly of their habit of magnifying their import, impact and size — on the basis of predictable arguments and sketchy research". In trying to make South Africa a node on the map of anti-globalisation resistance, the social movements may be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, writes Ferial Haffajee.
Official opposition communications spokesperson Dene Smuts says Telkom is disingenuous when it argues that its profits were not only derived from revenues but also cost savings. Telkom, which appeared before the parliamentary communications committee on Friday, argued that fixed line profits were the product of cost cuts.
Bus company Putco has proposed a scheme of arrangement that would see the company become wholly-owned by Lexshell 603 Investments and the transport company delist from the JSE Securities Exchange. The move is aimed at increasing black ownership of Putco.
The day on which James Joyce’s <i>Ulysses</i> is set, June 16, is celebrated as "Bloomsday" in Dublin. As the novel nears its centenary, Stephen Gray winkles out hitherto-unnoted South African connections.
Four lucky <i>Mail & Guardian Online</i> readers in Gauteng get to meet one of the world’s top DJs.
Even great minds wander. When I hear our leaders, national or global, spilling forth the predigested pabulum of their public statements, I often wonder what’s going on in their minds. As they speechify, roll out all the platitudes and clichés, what are they really thinking?
The Cape Wine Academy has joined forces with the SA Wine Routes Forum to improve service levels at wine cellars throughout South Africa in an effort to maximise the country’s wine tourism potential. This entails offering a new wine course focusing on improving the services offered by wine cellar personnel.
Excuse us for not adding our voice to the outpouring of praise for defunct United States president Ronald Reagan — the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> does not believe in sanitising the malodorous dead. Our only regret is that this smiling ghoul was not gathered to his fathers before the start of his eight-year reign of terror over the Third World.
Fortified by his United Nations victory, United States President George Bush called on Wednesday for Nato allies to assume a greater role in US-led efforts to stabilise Iraq and bring democracy there. But the president acknowledged that alliance members might not send troops.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=67625">Bush ignored lawyers over tactics</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=67651">Saboteurs blow up oil pipeline</a>
Availability of HIV treatment could shift attitudes about the threat of HIV/Aids in the developing world.
Niall Ferguson is professor of history at New York University, and rapidly becoming one of the most celebrated intellectuals in the United States. His new book and television series, <i>Colossus</i>, is an attempt to persuade the US that it must take its imperial role seriously, becoming in the 21st century what Britain was in the 19th.
A small commercial airplane crashed into the Atlantic off the West African nation of Gabon on Tuesday, company officials said. Authorities rescued 10 of the people on board and were searching for 20 others. The craft was a two-engine propeller plane flown by Gabon Express, a private Gabon company.
A South African NGO, the Social Change Assistance Trust was on Monday placed on the shortlist for the $1-million Alcan Prize for Sustainability by The Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum. Of almost 500 entries received from 79 countries around the world, only 12 organisations made the shortlist.
There’s an on-off, local, real-time, online war unfolding between users of Sentech’s new MyWireless service in South Africa and the company itself, discovers Ian Fraser. He also finds out what happens when one connects one’s washing machine to the personal computer and how to get a phone call from a B-list celebrity.
The disclaimer reads: "Passenger warning: this aircraft has been amateur-built, and does not conform to federal regulations." What do I make of this? The "non-standard" aircraft is already airborne over the Magaliesburg, headed out towards the shimmering, blue-brown wastes of the northern regions of South Africa.