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May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 28 2012 07:53
The City of Cape Town has spent R175m running the Myciti bus service since the Soccer World Cup compared to an income of R35m, a report says.
May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
Singapore - Crude prices rose in Asia on Friday on nervous trade ahead of a closely-watched US jobs report to be released later in the day, analysts said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, gained 22 cents to $96.58 a barrel in the afternoon.
Brent North Sea crude for March delivery was up 31c to $112.38.
"Oil investors have turned cautious ahead of Friday's US government report on non-farm payrolls and unemployment," Phillip Futures said in a report.
Analysts expect the report, seen as a barometer of the US economy's health, to show a fall in the net number of jobs added to the economy in January, to 155 000 from 200 000 in December.
No improvement in the unemployment rate of 8.5% is forecasted, a worrying sign for the economy of the world's largest oil consumer.
"In the face of the jobs forecast, oil investors shrugged off US economic reports... which showed that jobless benefit claims fell last week and US non-farm productivity rose in the fourth quarter," Phillip Futures added.
Thursday's Labour Department report on weekly new claims for unemployment benefits, an indicator of the pace of layoffs, fell for the fourth straight week and was 12% lower than one year ago.
Official figures also showed US non-farm productivity numbers growing at an annual rate of 2.6% in the fourth quarter of 2011, beating analyst forecasts of a 2.0% hike.