Total South Africa’s equity partnership — the last black empowerment deal involving the "big five" oil companies —marks a milestone, but poses new questions for the liquid fuels industry.
When chatting to investment professionals, two issues keep cropping up: the expectations of investors and the greed of CEOs.
Investor doubts persists about mining and resources group Anglo American, despite determined moves to streamline its operation since it relocated to London.
After delivering an impressive set of results, supermarket group Pick ‘n Pay showed its intentions to broaden its horizons within and beyond South Africa’s borders.
Diversified mining group Anglo American made a significant impact on South Africa during the last quarter in its unfamiliar capacity as a foreign investor.
New Africa Investments Limited (Nail) should sell off its media interests and use the proceeds, together with its stockpile of R639-million, to pay off its shareholders.
An unexpectedly prolonged war in Iraq could trigger a world recession that would bite into South African export prospects — but the local economy should withstand the turbulence reasonably well, say economists.
The two local government unions involved in rationalising Johannesburg city council pension funds opposed the blanket dissolution of the 11 existing funds but have not finalised positions on an alternative approach to rationalising these funds.
Part of the reason for South Africa’s worsening unemployment is that attempts to address it have been based on "programmes and projects" without looking at policies and the framework they create.
Global economic recession is on the cards, especially if the war in Iraq lasts for months rather than weeks.
Mining baroness Bridgette Radebe has suggested that the chief of Mmakau and a consortium are seeking to overturn the will of the people and causing dissent in the community. This was in reaction to accusations that Radebe sought to use political influence to obtain prospecting rights.
Bridgette Radebe, a mining magnate and the wife of Minister of Public Enterprises Jeff Radebe, is embroiled in a mining rights dispute in Mmakau village in the North West province.
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/ 21 February 2003
Thebe Mabanga wonders who is behind the mask of celebrated kwaito star Mzekezeke, a creation of Gauteng youth station Yfm.
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/ 11 February 2003
Platinum mining will create employment for the foreseeable future and gold mining appears to have stemmed the haemorrhaging of jobs of the past six years, figures from Department of Minerals and Energy suggest. This in a week when platinum touched a high of $698 an ounce.
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/ 5 February 2003
The strengthening of the rand and falling output herald "nasty" times ahead for South Africa’s gold mining industry. Three of the four largest gold producers this week reported an earnings crash, while the largest, AngloGold, predicted a rough six months ahead.
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/ 30 January 2003
Nail’s reported plan to buy 24% of Gauteng youth radio station Yfm could force it to jump through a few hoops – and still not get what it wants. Union Alliance Media, which has gone into liquidation, previously held between 25% and 26% of the station.
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/ 24 January 2003
Cosatu has lashed Telkom’s Khulisa discount share offer as "a threadbare effort to fool our people into thinking that the privatisation of the telecommunications industry will benefit them". Jeff Radebe announced earlier that it was all systems go with the listing.
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/ 10 December 2002
The National Council of Trade Unions is clamping down on an officer who blew the whistle about alleged financial irregularities after the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> reported a range of allegations against it by its treasurer Zayne Marimuthu.
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/ 4 December 2002
The National Council of Trade Unions has been accused of gross financial mismanagement by one of its top officials, who intends to take legal steps to ensure that the federation gets its finances in order.
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/ 2 December 2002
Over the past 10 years Mozambique has been more successful in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) than most other developing countries, but analysts wonder how much the inflow has benefited the broader economy.
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/ 30 November 2002
If Nigerian newspaper ThisDay is thinking of entering the South African breaking-news market, it’ll have to get someone on the ball to run its website. The paper’s offices were firebombed last Thursday, a fact that the site neglected to mention in its Friday edition. The website also failed to mention the riots that swept through the town of Kaduna last Thursday, in which more than 100 people were said to have been killed.
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/ 28 November 2002
Limpopo emerged as SouthAfrica’s best-performing province in the past year, according to regional economic figures released by Statistics SA on Thursday, while North West was the worst. Limpopo’s economy grew by 6,8%, against a contraction of 1,6% for North West.
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/ 8 November 2002
The rand has completed one of its best weeks in recent months by maintaining its value at below the R10 to the dollar level, with analysts expecting the good performance to last for the foreseeable future.
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/ 25 October 2002
Channel O and Yfm both celebrate five years of broadcasting this month, writes Thebe Mabanga.
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/ 11 October 2002
The winner of this year’s Arts & Culture Trust award for Journalist of the Year, Themba ka Mathe, is a soft-spoken bohemian with a passion for poetry and developmental issues, writes Thebe Mabanga.
Nobody ever suggested that the search for a new South African theatrical identity would be complete within a decade of democracy. But no one could have imagined that the process of moving beyond conventional protest theatre would take us through nauseatingly static, linear and pedestrian experiments that pass for work addressing present day issues. The current programme at the Market Theatre offers new directions with a play featuring seasoned talent, and four new plays at the Fifth Barney Simon Young Writers Festival.
When Patrice Motsepe, the new president of the National Federated Chamber of Commerce, closed the chamber’s Sun City congress last Sunday, he made a telling Freudian slip. Motsepe thanked everyone for work done "over the past three years". He meant three days, but it probably felt like years.
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/ 13 September 2002
Gary Rogers has joined the Mail & Guardian as director of sales and marketing. Rogers is a former deputy general manager: Sunday Times, Financial Mail and Business Day. His career, which has focused on sales, has also included stints as sales and marketing manager for the Sunday Times and general manager (sales) of Times Media Ltd’s magagine division.
Traditional San music has been remixed into the mesmerising, digitally powered sound of trance, writes Thebe Mabanga.
The government will take a leaf from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal by hugely expanding its public works programme to create jobs, boost infrastructure and stimulate the economy.
The government is well placed to develop the junior mining sector over the next decade — but is likely to be forced to rethink key aspects of its proposals for empowerment in the mining industry.
The poet, author and performer Saul Williams — visiting South Africa as part of the Urban Voices festival — has a consuming obsession with the meaning of life and the abstract realm of the afterlife, religion and, well, music, writes Thebe Mabanga.