BusinessLIVE - For Your Ear

Government must learn from mistakes in handing out fishing rights

With the forthcoming allocation of fishing rights to commercial fisheries, the government has a unique opportunity to reward broad-based BEE (BBBEE) and preserve jobs — but first it must learn from its mistakes. This October the department of environment, forestry & fisheries will begin the process of allocating rights to…

26 Aug 2020 9AM 5 min

LETTER: Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s sage advice

It was heart-warming to learn from the media that Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi has tested negative, free from Covid-19. This is not only good news for himself, his family and Inkatha, it is great news for SA and particularly the people of KwaZulu-Natal. This country needs Buthelezi’s guidance, leadership and wisdom…

26 Aug 2020 9AM 1 min

LETTER: Remove the blinkers

It was refreshing to read Claire Bisseker’s piece on the shortcomings of business’s approach to SA’s economic future (“SA’s political economy is a merry-go-round; no wonder we’re sick to our stomachs (”, August 24). Business’s engagement with the government has failed because it misdiagnosed the problems. We at the Institute…

26 Aug 2020 9AM 1 min

THE LEX COLUMN: Ant Group — Jack the giant maker

Ant Group started small. Its name comes from its commitment to serve individuals and small businesses. But there is nothing modest about the Chinese fintech company’s Hong Kong and Shanghai dual listing. The initial public offering is expected to raise $30bn. It will be the biggest of the year —…

26 Aug 2020 9AM 2 min

LETTER: Sweet Covid deals

You have price makers and price takers in markets. Consumer protection and competition laws are there to protect the public from suppliers abusing market power by setting unreasonable prices. But what happens when the customer is the price maker and abuses its market power to set unreasonable prices? It’s not…

26 Aug 2020 9AM 1 min

LETTER: Assess the veracity of such claims

I quite often read syndicated articles and wonder whether they are chosen by the newspaper for their content or whether it is on the basis of take-it-or-leave-it. The Bloomberg article about the evil one from the Urals comes to mind (“Vladimir Putin will have last word in Belarus — and…

26 Aug 2020 9AM 1 min

LETTER: Poison under the bed?

Prominent SA politicians have made a habit of travelling to Russia to seek assistance with suspected cases of wilful poisoning, especially on unscheduled flights. On the other hand, Russian politicians would appear to have an understandable need to head for Western countries to seek similar relief. One is left to…

26 Aug 2020 9AM 1 min

Angela Merkel at her wits end with Putin as Alexei Navalny is still in a coma

Berlin — With Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny lying in an induced coma just minutes from Angela Merkel’s office in Berlin, the German chancellor is at a loss over what to do about Russian President Vladimir Putin. The German leader — a key conduit to the West for the Russian…

26 Aug 2020 9AM 5 min

LETTER: Beef is back

Bekezela Phakathi correctly points out that some subsectors of SA agriculture are not in good shape, but he misses the point by highlighting the beef industry as one of these (“Beef industry faces uncertain future (”, August 25). It is true that when the country was in lockdown levels 5…

26 Aug 2020 9AM 1 min

NZ mosque murderer hears from survivors before sentencing

Wellington — The father of slain three-year-old Mucaad Ibrahim, the youngest victim in the New Zealand mosque shootings, told the white supremacist who gunned down his son that “true justice” awaited him in the next life and it would be more severe than prison. “You have killed my son and…

26 Aug 2020 8AM 3 min

Does having a woman at a country’s helm help keep Covid-19 deaths lower?

The evidence is in: at least during the first wave of Covid-19, countries with female leaders suffered far lower death rates than comparable nations led by men. This doesn’t mean that the trend will necessarily persist in a second or third wave. Nor does it imply that women are also…

26 Aug 2020 8AM 4 min

ROBIN YOU: Tech cold war will hit global suppliers, but some locals could benefit

These days it is hard to have a conversation about China without considering geopolitical risks. We are seeing a decoupling between China and the US on all fronts — Covid-19, geopolitics, trade and technology. Hong Kong has historically been the financial hub connecting mainland China with global financial markets. China…

26 Aug 2020 8AM 5 min

Fita withdraws tobacco challenge after reaching settlement with government

Lobby group, Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association (Fita) has withdrawn its legal challenge to the rationality of the ban on the sale of tobacco products during the lockdown after reaching a settlement with the government. The organisation, which represents SA’s local cigarette manufacturers, was granted permission in the Supreme Court…

26 Aug 2020 8AM 1 min

Two dead as protests over police shooting of Jacob Blake escalate

Kenosha — A third night of street protests over the police shooting of a black man erupted into gun violence late on Tuesday and early Wednesday in Kenosha, Wisconsin, killing two people and wounding one, police said. Social media videos showed chaotic scenes of people running and screaming amid a…

26 Aug 2020 7AM 3 min

How one woman’s gardening helped rebuild New Orleans

New York — New Orleans’ lower ninth ward bears plenty of scars of Hurricane Katrina that devastated the city 15 years ago — overgrown vacant lots, broken foundations where houses once stood and empty streets where people once lived. Then there’s the gardens of Jeanette Bell, plots of life she…

26 Aug 2020 7AM 4 min

SA women account for among the fewest global female business leaders

August 26 marks Women’s Equality Day, which focuses on forging a gender-equal world, celebrating women’s successes and raising awareness of historical and present bias. There’s a lot of discussion at present about women in the workplace and under-representation in industry — 5% of US ownership in the tech industry is…

26 Aug 2020 7AM 4 min

Life-threatening Hurricane Laura set to hit the US this week

New York — Hurricane Laura is poised to become a life-threatening category 4 storm before coming ashore along the Texas-Louisiana coast this week, potentially inflicting as much as $18bn in damage on the region and keeping some of America’s largest oil refineries shut for months. Laura’s winds were forecast to…

26 Aug 2020 6AM 5 min

Zimbabwe has no external support, its treasury laments

Zimbabwe is being forced into a corner by the refusal of multilateral lenders to lend the country more money as the country faces economic meltdown, according to the government’s top treasury official. “Its very difficult to run the economy without any external support,” George Guvamatanga, the finance and economic development…

26 Aug 2020 6AM 3 min

Melania Trump a lone voice of empathy at Republican convention

Washington — US First lady Melania Trump capped the second night of the Republican national convention by attempting to soften the image of her highly divisive husband, forgoing attacks on Democrat Joe Biden to focus on the ravaging toll of the coronavirus and the nation’s tortured racial history in a…

26 Aug 2020 6AM 6 min

Oil prices rise as US producers close ahead of Hurricane Laura

London — Oil rose towards $46 a barrel on Wednesday, near the highest since March, lifted by US producers shutting most of their offshore Gulf of Mexico output ahead of Hurricane Laura and a report showing a drop in US crude inventories. Renewed worries over the Covid-19 pandemic, which has…

26 Aug 2020 5AM 2 min