South African producer prices for all commodities fell by 1% in the 12 months to the end of February from a 1,4% decline for the 12 months to the end of January, Statistics South Africa said on Thursday. On the month, the PPI was up 0,5%, compared with no change in January.
In the wake of Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> would like to throw down a challenge to South Africa’s Jewish community — or at least the many members of the community who uncritically back the government of Ariel Sharon.
The Aids Law project has welcomed Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s response on Wednesday to an ultimatum from the Treatment Action Campaign. The minister ordered that there should be an urgent accreditation of facilities that meet the requirements to provide quality Aids care.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=33110">Minister responds to TAC’s call</a>
South Africa’s CPIX inflation (headline inflation excluding mortgage costs) was up 4,8% year-on-year for metro and other areas in February compared with 4,2% in January and 4% in December, Statistics South Africa said on Wednesday. "It is what we expected," an economist said.
Global index company FTSE is to continue to treat South Africa as an advanced emerging market, the JSE Securities Exchange South Africa (JSE) said in a statement on Wednesday. At the invitation of FTSE, the JSE made representations in December 2003 to the FTSE policy committee.
DIY sex scandals, spaced out testimonies from astronauts on UFO sightings, nun target practice games, poking fun at Pokémon, handicapped kittens, competitive eating, and sideburns for sale online — Ian Fraser does what you don’t have time to do and brings you the bizarre on the net.
In 1973, when the Organisation for African Unity held its conference in Addis Ababa, Emperor Haile Selassie threw a splendid banquet for the media. At the time Ethiopia was in the grip of its most famous famine. Not a callous man, the emperor was simply going along with normal protocol that requires heads of state to deliver what we now call "world-class" hospitality.
Telkom does not believe software providing free international telephone calls on the internet will impact on its revenue, it said on Tuesday. "We are more concerned from a legal and regulatory perspective," said Andrew Weldrick, a Telkom spokesperson.
The Treatment Action Campaign said on Tuesday it would file court papers against the Department of Health if Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang failed to respond by Wednesday to the TAC’s demands to supply Aids patients with anti-retrovirals.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=33055">First dispensing licences presented</a>
Black economic empowerment company Makana Financial Services is to acquire a 10% strategic investment in listed South African specialist financial services group Cadiz Holdings for R41-million.
Theirs was a fate worse than death, a tale which chilled colonial Britain: the <i>Grosvenor</i>’s women and girls shipwrecked on the wild coast of Southern Africa in 1782 who had the misfortune to survive and be carried off by the natives. New evidence, however, suggests a rather different story.
You have to wonder when the pace is going to let up. It’s difficult to keep up with the unrelenting speed of technological advancement these days. Cellphones have become the newest culprit in this category. No one’s complaining, although you need deep pockets to keep up. Sony Ericsson’s latest release is the new P900 "smart phone".
Palestinian militants today warned of swift and bloody retaliation against Israel after it "opened the gates of hell" by assassinating Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin. Hamas and other armed groups in the region warned of an immediate escalation in violence, while tens of thousands of mourners poured on to the streets of Gaza for the funeral procession of Yassin.
<li><a class="standardtextsmall" href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=33007">World condemns assassination</a>
<li><a class="standardtextsmall" href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=32994">SA condemns assassination</a>
South Africa’s Meerlust Rubicon 1999 has been hailed as the best new world red wine in the March edition of well regarded US wine magazine <i>Decanter</i>, according to industry website winenews.co.za.
In July 2003 Lembede Investment Holdings, the African National Congress Youth League’s (ANCYL) investment company, was touted as the new 16,5% empowerment partner in property management company Rand Leases.
Rows of bright-green, leafy tobacco plants grow in a humid greenhouse. They look identical, but one row is special. These are genetically altered tobacco plants, carrying the shell of the human papilloma virus, which causes cervical cancer in women. These Tobacco leaves could provide an affordable vaccine for cervical cancer in Southern Africa.
I hate to claim that this column, after all, always gets things right. But on the other hand, no one else is acknowledging that fact as a fact. Someone has to do it. So, as Percy Sledge once said, let it be me. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, after a few days in the unexplainable limbo of Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic (once "Empire"), has indeed been flown back to the Caribbean.
The revelation that the second national operator has run into difficulties because of disagreements among shareholders is the latest depressing episode in a long-running saga. According to reports, Kennedy Memani, the chairperson of Nexus Connection, has accused shareholders Communitel and Two Consortium of holding the process to ransom.
The National Union of Mineworkers on Thursday announced that it had declared a dispute at the Modikwa Platinum mine, near Burgersfort in Mpumalanga, and said the matter has been referred to the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration.
A salmanazar and several jeroboams are among the more exotic sized bottles in a line up of outstanding South African wines donated to a high-profile charity auction at Cape Wine 2004, the four-day wine trade fair taking place in Cape Town on March 30.
United Kigdom and South Africa-listed SABMiller has established two separate joint ventures with its pan-African partner the Castel Group in the French speaking territories of Algeria and Morocco, at a total cost to the group of $46-million, the company announced on Thursday.
Absa is the first bank in the country to implement an advanced debit card fraud software system which detects fraud in near real-time. The strength of the system lies in its neural network technology that identifies subtle patterns of suspicious or unusual behaviour by looking at known patterns of fraud.
Campaign resources, especially financial resources, always stir heated debates in all democracies and it is an issue increasingly coming to the fore in South Africa.
This is a serious issue because it will be a sad day indeed if the amount of resources will be the determinant of which party is going to win an election.
"I am still the Hitler of the time. This Hitler has only one objective. Justice for his people. Sovereignty for his people. If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold."
On March 26 last year, the Zimbabwean despot, Robert Mugabe, said these words at a political rally. There was immediate and outraged local response but, as I recall, articulated only in the media and by opposition voices.
Opposition parties, desperate for a popular cause on which to challenge the African National Congress and looking anxiously over their right shoulders at each other, have exhumed the death penalty as an issue in this election. It is worth reiterating some of the arguments used by the Constitutional Court in striking down the death penalty nearly 10 years ago.
The exploitation of Swazi mineral resources has long been a sensitive area of debate, as the colonial era saw a considerable portion of these resources being depleted by foreigners. However, the overtures of a South African businessman might be about to change all that.
Humanitarian agencies are gearing up this week to assist close to 800Â 000 people after a tropical cyclone hit Madagascar twice in the past 10 days. The death toll from Gafilo now stands at 74 and an estimated 200Â 000 people are without shelter, according to officials.
Howard Stern and vomit fetishes, the Mayan apocalypse, comics to help kids deal with bereavement, gifts for the newly single and Bush Blogs, Ian Fraser trawls the Net to bring you the weird and the wonderful on the world wide web.
"I take strong exception to being lumped together with the so-called ‘Bantustan stooges’ and in fact these averments by your newspaper are defamatory per se." Minister of Home Affairs and president of the Inkatha Freedom Party Mangosuthu Buthelezi responds to the <i>M&G</i>.
Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change remains unsure about contesting crucial parliamentary elections due in the next 12 months. The dilemma is whether to participate in a poll the party fears will not be free or fair, or to boycott and risk becoming politically irrelevant, political analysts say.
Standard Bank, the Development Bank of Southern Africa and several international partners have successfully closed one of the biggest infrastructure deals in Africa, which will see them providing nearly R3,83-billion in debt finance for Sasol’s multi-billion rand natural gas project.
Ralf Hotchkiss was paralysed in a motorcycle crash in 1966 when he was a college student in the United States. Within minutes of leaving hospital he was sowing the seeds of his future career, designing cheap, custom-made wheelchairs for people ranging from disabled Zambian footballers to women in rural Kenyan villages.