Greece’s governing coalition parties are to meet for a second time in three days to try and end a political crisis triggered by the closure of state broadcaster ERT. Conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will hold talks later Wednesday with coalition partners — the Socialist Pasok and Democratic Left parties — who have opposed his
Read more: Greek political parties try to solve crisis around state TV closure
This morning, Starbucks announced that starting next Tuesday it will post the calorie content of all its coffee drinks and food items in all its company-owned stores in the U.S. This is big news, and overdue. For many people who don’t want to think about calories, or think they have a good idea of the
Trying to tamp down concerns about government over-reach, President Barack Obama on Wednesday defended U.S. Internet and phone surveillance programs as narrowly targeted efforts that have saved lives and thwarted at least 50 terror threats. “This is not a situation in which we are rifling through ordinary emails” of huge numbers of citizens in the
William Mukurazita’s deposit at the bank has four legs and moos. Zimbabwe’s first “Cattle Bank” has just opened its books in a unique kind of banking where owners bring in their animals as collateral against cash loans. For many rural poor in this southern African country once wracked by world-record inflation, it’s the first bank
Read more: Zimbabwe’s ‘Cattle Bank’ takes deposits – with 4 legs
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has filed an urgent application with the country’s top court to push back crucial elections by two weeks, his justice minister said Wednesday. Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told AFP he had filed papers “yesterday (Tuesday)” that sought “a postponement of the date for the harmonised elections from July 31 2013 to
Naspers owned online news publisher, 24.com has decided to disband its Afrikaans Nuus24 channel. The group said in a statement on Tuesday (11 June) that while Nuus24 has generated “excellent engagement” for its audiences and advertisers, “the team believe that they cannot scale the operation to the same levels as News24″. Nuus24 hosts Afrikaans newspaper websites for Beeld, Die
Government has failed to redistribute land to previously disadvantaged groups, the so-called Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) said on Wednesday. “[The] government of South Africa has failed to use almost 20 years of democratic dispensation to address and redress the land question,” said spokesman Floyd Shivambu. “Our people remain in squatter camps, informal settlements, and non-arable
Read more: ANC govt. failed to redistribute land: Economic Freedom Fighters
Equal Education (EE) has issued the following media release: Equal Education (EE) notes with shock and disappointment the statement released by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) headed “Equal Education is disingenuous: Minister Motshekga”. Every factual claim about the process needed for the finalisation of Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure is wrong and misleading.
Read more: EE accuses South African minister of ‘attack on non-racism’
The murder of Gauteng policeman Maj-Gen Tirhani Maswanganyi on Tuesday was an indication that criminals were not afraid of law enforcement agencies, the FF Plus said. “The murderers clearly, regardless of the motif, have no fear of law enforcement or prosecution,” Freedom Front Plus leader in the province Jaco Mulder said in a statement on
A warning issued to tourists by the United States says Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town are “critical crime threat spots”, The New Age reported on Wednesday. The warning was released in a document by the US state department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. It states: “Violent and confrontational crime is a major concern [in South
Read more: Pretoria, Jhb, Durban, CT are ‘critical crime threats’, says US govt.
Much research and media attention has been devoted to exploring rapidly emerging African countries in recent years. In addition to extraordinarily high GDP growth rates, many African countries have seen their middle classes grow substantially and demand goods and services that were formerly available only to individuals in more developed countries. Cell phone use in
Read more: Cell phones lead to higher levels of violence throughout Africa
A fortnight ago, one of the biggest defence companies on the continent was formed. That’s defence companies as a whole, not private-owned or state-owned, but any defence company. It didn’t receive a huge amount of coverage, perhaps because the industry isn’t a big story in a country more worried about service delivery as it approaches
Read more: Ivor Ichikowitz now runs biggest defence company in Africa
Researchers seeking the roots of autism have linked the disorder to chemicals in air pollution and, in a separate study, found that language difficulties of the disorder may be due to a disconnect in brain wiring. Researchers from Harvard University’s School of Public Health found that pregnant women exposed to high levels of diesel particulates
Continuing a decades-long downward trend, fewer than one-fourth of Americans have confidence in newspapers, according to a recent Gallup poll. The percentage of Americans saying they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers dropped to 23 percent this year from 25 percent last year, according to a report on the
