BusinessLIVE - For Your Ear

TOM EATON: A terribly small Big Man meets an immovable object

I can’t tell you exactly when he arrived because there is a point, somewhere between the third and fourth hour of standing in a queue, where nothing really matters any more. To be fair, it’s not even a point. By that stage time is no longer a series of moments…

17 Aug 2020 12PM 4 min

Necessity the mother of stringent prohibitions, says Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma

The government has no desire to keep stringent prohibitions in place for longer than necessary, co-operative governance & traditional affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said after the gazetting of the regulations for level 2 of the risk-adjusted strategy. From Tuesday, South Africans will once again be allowed to buy tobacco products,…

17 Aug 2020 11AM 2 min

LETTER: Marikana’s 34 miners versus 34 abakwetha minors

The needless deaths of 34 young men can trigger vengeful anger that lasts for a decade. Or casual sympathy that’s gone before the page is turned. When it comes to mortality, it’s not the count that matters but the cause. It’s not the suffering of the victims that drives the…

17 Aug 2020 10AM 3 min

Pandemic must not be allowed to erode groundbreaking work in sugar sector

As SA starts to focus on recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, it is critical that agricultural sectors are supported in their efforts to ensure food security and provide critical rural jobs during these unprecedented times. Over the past year sugar industry stakeholders, the government and social partners have participated in…

17 Aug 2020 10AM 5 min

Central Asian migrant workers stranded in Russia

Moscow — Thousands of migrant workers from Central Asia are stuck in Russia because of travel bans, leading some to rely on money from home in a painful reversal of one of the biggest remittance flows in the world. “We’re up to our ears in debt,” said Tolib, a 26-year-old…

17 Aug 2020 10AM 3 min

UK survey points out thorns where Bank of England saw roses

London — The UK economy is likely to be smaller at the end of 2021 than it was before plunging into a record recession in 2020, according to a Bloomberg survey that casts fresh doubt on Bank of England (BOE) projections. Calculations based on the median estimate of economists polled…

17 Aug 2020 10AM 2 min

LETTER: The president must send corrupt comrades to prison

The old proverb “when the wicked rule, the people groan,” is increasingly proving true every day in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration. The time for talking and empty promises are over. Ramaphosa can no longer act shocked whenever he hears and knows about his own comrades and senior government officials who…

17 Aug 2020 9AM 2 min

Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures on public sector pay

The SA government remains the largest single employer in the labour market, accounting for 2,108,125 public servants at last count. Public servants are individuals who work for the state and whose main duty is associated with the welfare of the public and society at large. Their duties include providing service…

17 Aug 2020 9AM 7 min

Facebook at centre of Indian political storm

New Delhi — Indian politicians are trading barbs over a media report that Facebook’s content policies favoured Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, putting the social network at the centre of a political storm in its biggest market by users. Legislators of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have accused the social…

17 Aug 2020 8AM 2 min

Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya calls for fair election

Minsk — Belarusian opposition politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said on Monday she was ready to lead Belarus and called for the creation of a legal mechanism to ensure that a new and fair presidential election could be held. Speaking in a video address from Lithuania, she also urged security and law…

17 Aug 2020 7AM 2 min

China pushes chicken expansion despite safety and other issues

Beijing — China’s chicken producers are pushing ahead with aggressive expansion plans despite a slump in demand due to the coronavirus, reducing reliance on imports amid recent fears about the safety of foreign meat. The world’s number two poultry producer is expected to produce a record 14.85-million tonnes of chicken…

17 Aug 2020 7AM 4 min

Oil prices stable as China gets set to ship large amount of oil

London — Oil prices steadied on Monday as news that China planned to ship large volumes of US crude in August and September countered rising tensions between the two countries and a delay in the review of their trade pact over the weekend. Brent crude was down three US cents,…

17 Aug 2020 6AM 2 min

Global shares recover as Chinese markets gain ground

London/Sydney — Shares crept back towards recent peaks on Monday as Chinese markets swung higher, while investors waited to see if the recent sell-off in longer-dated US treasuries would be extended and perhaps take some pressure off the dollar. Europe was warming up to the new week slowly but was…

17 Aug 2020 5AM 4 min

Jacinda Ardern orders delay in New Zealand poll as new Covid-19 cases reported

Wellington — New Zealand’s prime minister postponed the country’s general election on Monday by a month to October 17 as the city of Auckland remains in lockdown due to a growing coronavirus outbreak. Jacinda Ardern bowed to pressure to delay the polls after parties complained they could not campaign with…

17 Aug 2020 5AM 3 min

Broke in Baramati as Indian middle-class dreams go up in smoke

Dutta Nagar — Until late March, Ashish Kumar was helping to make plastic boxes for Ferrero Rocher praline chocolates and the plastic spoons tucked inside Kinder Joy eggs to scoop out the milky sweet cream inside. With a diploma in plastic mould technology, the 20-year-old had a foot on his…

17 Aug 2020 4AM 7 min

California braces for more blackouts as power runs low amid heatwave

San Francisco/Los Angeles — California is bracing for another round of targeted blackouts on Monday as a heatwave continues to smother the region and power supplies run low. While the state’s grid operator said no outages were planned for Sunday night — sparing the region a third consecutive night of…

17 Aug 2020 4AM 4 min

Indian ban on arms imports shot down as ineffectual in boosting local industry

New Delhi — India’s move to ban the import of certain weapon systems will do little to boost local manufacturing and is sowing uncertainty while the South Asian nation is trying to ramp up defences on its restive borders with China and Pakistan, analysts say. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration…

17 Aug 2020 3AM 2 min

Japan has to claw its way out of a deeper hole than other big industrial nations

Despite being written off by sceptics as an economic wasteland for the past three decades, Japan has often managed to scrape by, and has even enjoyed periods of sustained growth. The Covid-19 pandemic will test whether the country really has nine lives. GDP shrank at annualised rate of 27.8% in…

17 Aug 2020 3AM 3 min

Denel names Talib Sadik as acting CEO

State-owned arms manufacturer Denel has appointed independent non-executive director Talib Sadik as acting CEO with immediate effect. The group has been struggling to pay salaries in 2020. Former CEO Danie du Toit departed on Friday after less than two years in the post. The search for a new CEO continues,…

17 Aug 2020 2AM 1 min

Asian shares rise as investors eye effect of sell-off in US Treasuries on dollar

Sydney — Asian shares firmed towards recent peaks on Monday as Chinese markets swung higher, while investors waited to see if the recent sell-off in longer-dated US Treasuries would extend and maybe take some pressure off the beleaguered dollar. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.5% to…

17 Aug 2020 1AM 4 min