TimesLIVE Podcasts BusinessLIVE - For Your Ear

BusinessLIVE - For Your Ear

Listen to the latest BusinessLIVE articles from the news desk of Business Day, Financial Mail and the Business Times.

This audio is produced directly from the text article.
Daily English South Africa Business News · News
12,931 Episodes
768 – 788

Sierra Leone court freezes Steinmetz’s Octea assets over environmental damage

Freetown — The high court of Sierra Leone, on Wednesday, granted an interim freezing order on the assets of Octea, a subsidiary of Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz’s BSG Resources (BSGR) in a lawsuit over alleged environmental damage around Octea’s diamond mine. The lawyer for the plaintiffs had requested a freezing…
19 Aug 2020 11AM 1 min

SIU probes R5bn worth of contracts related to Covid-19

The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) is probing R5bn worth of contracts in its investigation into corruption relating to the measures taken by the state to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. Aside from this, more allegations are continuing to flow to the SIU, its head Andy Mothibi said in parliament on Wednesday…
19 Aug 2020 11AM 3 min

Exporters can no longer ignore their carbon footprint

SA’s economic survival in a post-Covid world depends significantly on trade. However, the ability to trade internationally depends on an enterprise’s compliance with worldwide standards and regulations, which often involve various trade tariffs. As part of a global shift towards climate change action, carbon tariffs on imported goods are in…
19 Aug 2020 11AM 3 min

The case for responsible investment of pension savings in infrastructure

The idea of tapping into pension funds to finance infrastructure development with a view to increasing the productive capacity of the economy and create jobs is neither new nor unique to SA. However, amid a recent resurgence in the debate locally over whether large retirement funds should invest more in…
19 Aug 2020 11AM 5 min

Democrats formally confirm Joe Biden as presidential nominee

Columbus/Washington — Democrats officially nominated Joe Biden for president on Tuesday, culminating in a comeback that made him their choice to take on President Donald Trump with the blessing of the party’s past and future stars. Biden received the 2,374 delegate votes necessary for the nomination at a convention that…
19 Aug 2020 11AM 5 min

Mali’s gold mines still open but shares fall after coup

Johannesburg/London — Gold mining companies in Mali have said they are monitoring the deepening political crisis that hit their share prices on Wednesday. Most said they are operating as usual. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta resigned on Tuesday and dissolved parliament hours after soldiers detained him at gunpoint and seized power…
19 Aug 2020 10AM 2 min

Market reaction against Tencent a likely overreaction

Tencent, through its holding of WeChat, has been caught up in the escalating China/US trade tensions, which has potential implications for holders of shares in Naspers and Prosus. On August 6 US President Donald Trump issued two executive orders against Chinese tech companies, imposing a ban on US transactions with…
19 Aug 2020 10AM 4 min

I don’t want to talk to China right now, says Donald Trump

Washington/Beijing — US President Donald Trump has said he called off last weekend’s trade talks with China, raising questions about the future of a trade deal that is now the most stable point in an increasingly tense relationship. “I canceled talks with China,” Trump said on Tuesday in Yuma, Arizona…
19 Aug 2020 10AM 3 min

NICOLE FRITZ: Ruling against brave Beatrice Mtetwa invites only outrage

If, in these quasi-apocalyptic times, there were to be a type of Noah’s ark rerun, but instead of saving pairs of animals to repopulate a post-flood earth only the most exceptional representative of every profession and skill set was to be saved for a post-pandemic world, there’d probably be little…
19 Aug 2020 10AM 4 min

From the ashes of Beirut, a museum is in the making

Beirut — Standing in front of the rubble of a house destroyed in Beirut’s port blast, Henry Loussian brushes off the dust and dirt from fragments of its architecture all but lost among a tangle of scaffolding obscuring a grand ceiling and elaborate chandelier. Such heritage houses were once commonplace,…
19 Aug 2020 10AM 2 min

Citigroup’s $900m accidental payment headed for the courts

It will sound familiar. You’re doing an electronic transfer for $10 and just stop short of sending $1,000 by mistake. Sometimes bungled transactions like this go through — but rarely on the scale of last week’s $900m payments blunder by Citigroup, which paid debt investors roughly 100 times more than…
19 Aug 2020 10AM 3 min

Face masks raise intriguing questions around privacy, security, faith and identity

The mandatory wearing of masks in public raises intriguing questions around privacy, profiling, security, and even faith and identity. Countries such as France and Belgium have fought bitter cultural battles for more than a decade over attempts to ban Muslim women from covering their faces in public. While the hijab…
19 Aug 2020 9AM 5 min

Many US cinemas set to brush off dusty silver screens

Los Angeles — AMC Theatres and other cinema chains will fire up projectors in some major US cities this week, offering lower-priced admission, discounted popcorn and new safety measures to tempt audiences back to the movies despite the pandemic. Theatres will remain closed, however, in some of the biggest movie-going…
19 Aug 2020 9AM 2 min

ANN BERNSTEIN: Only business can lead SA out of the abyss

SA has never faced as many, as intractable and as mutually reinforcing a set of crises as it does now. Everything from poverty rates and political fractures to our catastrophic fiscal and employment crises is worse than it has ever been. We were on the road to this destination in…
19 Aug 2020 9AM 6 min

State’s R200bn loan guarantee plan at risk of becoming ‘stillborn’

The government’s R200bn Covid-19 loan guarantee scheme, which is meant to assist small businesses through the health crisis, faces the real danger of becoming stillborn and bringing the economy down with it, parliament heard on Wednesday. The government’s stringent measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus led to the…
19 Aug 2020 9AM 3 min

Joburg to implement credit controls again

Johannesburg will resume all its credit-control measures on Monday, which means it will now cut water and electricity for the non-payment of bills for those who do not make arrangements to clear their arrears with the city. The city had dropped these measures due to the economic devastation caused by…
19 Aug 2020 9AM 3 min

Treasury’s proposal will act as disincentive to unbundle, says tax expert

New proposals for the tax treatment of unbundling transactions will have a dampening effect on this form of corporate restructuring, PwC tax policy leader Kyle Mandy believes. The proposed change will make it more difficult for a company to qualify for unbundling tax relief than is currently the case and…
19 Aug 2020 8AM 4 min

US not overjoyed by postmaster Louis DeJoy’s assurances

Washington — US President Donald Trump’s postal service chief tried to neutralise complaints by suspending his operational changes, but he failed to silence accusations that he is hampering the agency’s ability to handle voting by mail. Postmaster-general Louis DeJoy’s retreat followed mounting pressure from Democrats, including an August 5 exchange…
19 Aug 2020 8AM 6 min
768 – 788