BusinessLIVE - For Your Ear

The economy has been particularly hard hit by our response to the Covid-19 pandemic. As the dust begins to settle, business and the government are moving (with varying degrees of urgency) to set their organisations and the economy on the road to recovery. One effective weapon we have in our armoury should not be ignored: corporate governance. A 2018 article by the International Finance Corporation...

New York — It was supposed to be another $1bn blockbuster for Walt Disney — a live-action remake of a 1998 animated hit featuring an all-star Asian cast, breathtaking cinematography and plenty of martial arts. Instead, the new Mulan is proving to be a political hot potato, reflecting the US’s fraying ties with China, and the choices companies face when operating in the highly pol...

London — Rapid population growth, lack of access to food and water, and increased exposure to natural disasters mean more than 1-billion people face being displaced by 2050, according to a new analysis of global ecological threats. Compiled by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), a think-tank that produces annual terrorism and peace indices, the ecological threat register uses data...

Minsk/Moscow — The embattled Belarusian opposition lost contact with two more members of its co-ordination council as authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko targets the leaders of the biggest protests of his 26-year rule. Lawyers Maksim Znak and Ilya Saley were targeted in separate raids on Wednesday, opposition spokesperson Gleb Germanchuk said. Znak managed to tell him that “so...

London — Boris Johnson is facing a backlash from within his own ruling Conservative Party after the UK government said it plans to break international law over Brexit. As trade talks with the EU continue, the prime minister will take questions in Parliament and is likely to be put under pressure by senior Tories who fear the move will undermine trust in the UK around the world. The controver...

Regional elections are often dull and predictable. Unfortunately for President Vladimir Putin, the ones in Russia will be neither on Sunday, when the world’s largest country by land mass goes to the polls. The dramatic poisoning of opposition campaigner Alexei Navalny adds to a string of events that will make it harder than ever for the Kremlin to guarantee its desired results. A dress rehea...

London — Oil futures clawed back some of the losses they sustained in the previous session, but a rebound in Covid-19 cases in some countries undermined hopes for a steady recovery in global demand. Brent crude was up 44 US cents, or 1.1%, at $40.22 a barrel by 7.52am GMT after dropping more than 5% on Tuesday to fall below $40 a barrel for the first time since June. US crude was up 50c, or...

London — European shares on Wednesday shrugged off heavy losses for US tech stocks and a major drugmaker delaying testing of a coronavirus vaccine, as investors kept faith in an economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The broad Euro Stoxx 600 gained 0.7% in early trading, steadying after hefty declines a day earlier on a rout of tech shares, a key drivers of the stunning recovery fo...

Harare — Zimbabwe’s biggest nurses union said on Wednesday that it is encouraging its members to end a pay strike that started in June and which forced major hospitals to turn away patients at a time when the country is fighting the coronavirus pandemic. Inflation is running above 800%, reviving memories of the hardships of more than a decade ago when hyperinflation wiped out savings a...

In researching this column, it dawned on me that I’m a financial minnow at sea in the briny depths of superyachts, lobster platters and billionaires backstroking through piles of cash. Last week, at the launch of the rebooted Ghost (, Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös told the BBC “that markets in Asia, Europe and the US were now ‘more or less back to normal&...

Bengaluru — Gold prices slipped on Wednesday as the dollar rose to multi-week highs ahead of monetary policy strategies from major central banks in North America and Europe. Spot gold was down 0.3% to $1,925.20/oz by 2.39am GMT. US gold futures fell 0.4% to $1,935.20. “Gold is edging lower as the US dollar’s strength continues. A deeper correction below $1,900 cannot be ruled out...

Number of Covid-19 infections in SA rises to 640,441, there have been 567,729 recoveries and 15,086 deaths to date

A round-up of the best pictures from day 166 of the national lockdown

Tokyo — Oil futures fell further on Wednesday after big declines the previous session with Brent sliding below $40 a barrel for the first time since June as Covid-19 cases rebounded in several countries. The biggest global health crisis in a century continues to flare unabated with cases rising in India, Great Britain, Spain and several parts of the US, where the infection rate has not come...

Tokyo/New York — Asian shares fell on Wednesday and oil prices hit lows not seen since June after a rout in technology shares sank Wall Street for a third consecutive day and a major drugmaker delayed testing of a coronavirus vaccine. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slid 1.06%. Australian stocks dropped 2.47%, while shares in China fell 1.53%. Japan’s N...

Of the hundreds of potential Covid-19 vaccines in development, six are in the final stages of testing, known as phase three clinical trials. One of these — ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 — is the vaccine we’re developing at the University of Oxford. To be approved, vaccines need to go through multiple rounds of testing to show that they’re safe and effective. A combined phase one and phas...

Clicks CEO Vikesh Ramsunder first saw the advertisement that caused all the trouble last Friday, as it began to attract heat on social media. The contrasting images, created by Unilever’s Tresemmé brand and posted on the Clicks website, was of a white woman’s head with the description “normal hair” next to a black woman’s head, with “frizzy and dull hair&r...

Brussels — European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen put former Latvian prime minister Valdis Dombrovskis in charge of the influential trade portfolio in a reshuffle forced by the departure of Irishman Phil Hogan. Von der Leyen also named Mairead McGuinness, a senior member of the European parliament, as the new Irish commissioner for financial services and stability and capital mar...

Washington — Senate Republicans introduced a slimmed-down stimulus bill that would restore some of the extra unemployment benefits that expired in July and provide another round of relief for small businesses hit by the Covid-19 crisis. The legislation, which Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted earlier on Tuesday as a political stunt that did not amount to a real effort to help the...

Long before the grim outcome was confirmed, it was clear the second-quarter GDP number was going to be as no other. And it was no surprise that President Cyril Ramaphosa issued a lengthy statement in response ( In his short time in office, statements lamenting SA’s dismal economic performance have sadly become a regular occurrence. This time there was no attempt to sugar-coat things by descr...

Harare — Zimbabwe will resume domestic flights from Thursday and international flights in October in an effort to boost tourism, but travellers will be required to have a certificate clearing them of Covid-19, the government said. The country suspended flights and shut its borders in March as it sought to curb the spread of the coronavirus. The official infection tally is 7,388 people with 2...

A colleague recently received a stinging rebuke from fiery Kaizer Chiefs coach Ernst Middendorp that left him simultaneously bemused and amused. The combustible German mentor was apparently unimpressed with my colleague’s stinging examination of his at times perplexing approach to the game during the business end of the season. The incredibly candid Durban native with the bohemian ponytail t...

The right to life is fundamental; an imprescriptible right inherent to all human beings. The Equity and Human Rights Commission states that governments should take appropriate measures to safeguard life by “taking steps to protect you if your life is at risk”. With public healthcare in Africa suffering chronic shortages of critical drugs, medical brain-drain, insufficient public health...

London — Britain headed into a fresh round of Brexit trade talks on Tuesday acknowledging it could break international law but only in a “limited way” after reports that it may undercut its exit treaty with the EU. As the pound fell sharply on fears of a no-deal exit, the government’s legal department head quit in disagreement with a plan to overwrite parts of the withdrawa...

Business Day has by far the finest group of business writers and reporters in SA. Their opinion pieces and reports are normally of a very high standard. But why the regular stream of anti-DA rhetoric? SA is a country where the governing party has created nothing of value, and has destroyed, looted or trashed everything in sight via greed, open theft, wastage, negligence, incompetence, lies and rac...