Business News Online

The turmoil in North Africa has hit growth across the continent but may be prompting important indirect political changes, the chief economist of the African Development Bank said on Monday.

In a speech, Mthuli Ncube said the unrest in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia will probably reduce economic growth in North Africa this year to 0.7% from 4.7% last year. Overall, Africa’s growth is estimated at 3.7% in 2011, down from 4.9% last year.

Further south, Ncube said economies have been affected by a drop in money sent home by Africans from elsewhere on the continent who had been working in North Africa. Niger, for example, had 200 000 citizens working in oil-rich Libya, according to bank statistics.

Sub-Saharan African countries with high unemployment should also be wary, Ncube said. He noted in an interview with the Associated Press after his speech on Monday that former South African president Thabo Mbeki — which is struggling to cut unemployment, particularly among the young — was ousted in 2008 by his own African National Congress in campaign led by the party’s youth wing. Read more…

Workers in South Africa’s petroleum, pharmaceutical, and chemicals sectors will go on strike on July 11 over wages, union officials said on Thursday.

The Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers Union (Ceppwawu), which represents 70 000 employees, is seeking a 13% wage increase, almost triple the inflation rate, for 2011/12 and a minimum wage of R6 000 a month.

Employers are offering a 4% to 7% increase, the union said last week. Companies that will be impacted include Aspen Pharmacare, Africa’s biggest generic drug maker.

The union said other companies that would be affected included petrochemicals group Sasol, chemical and agriculture group Omnia, Adcock Ingram, Tiger Brands, and paper maker Sappi among others.

Simon Mofokeng, Ceppwawu general secretary, told journalists the union will serve 48-hour strike notices to the companies by end of business on Thursday, and that workers in the paper industry would begin their action towards the end of next week.

“The strike will impact on lives of ordinary people. T Read more…

The banquet room at Harpoon Louie’s restaurant in Phoenixville is shown. Photo by John Strickler/The Mercury

Harpoon Louie’s faced a dire future not too long ago. Photo by John Strickler/The Mercury

Harpoon Louie’s owner Frank Satiro with some of his children inside the restaurant’s Crab Deck. Photo by John Strickler/The Mercury

PHOENIXVILLE — When Frank Satiro learned earlier this year that the owner of Harpoon Louie’s was planning to close, he saw an opportunity worth diving into.

Satiro, owner of Frank’s Flamin’ Grille & Pizzeria in Pottstown, has purchased the sprawling nautical-themed Harpoon Louie’s from Ginger Katzenmoyer, who opened the 639 Schuylkill Road restaurant with her late husband, Richard D. “Rick” Katzenmoyer, in 1976.

“I knew Ginger when I was younger. I used to deliver her pizza,” said Satiro, who grew up working in the family business, New York Pizza, in Spring City. “

Read more…

New vehicle car sales have increased by 12.6% in June 2011 in comparison to same period in 2011, the latest figures released by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa) signalled on Monday.

In June 44880 new cars were sold, as opposed to the 39874 units sold in June 2010.

New cars sold in the first half of 2011 showed an encouraging spike of 15%, when compared with the first half of 2010.

Although the number may seem encouraging, Naamsa is warning future sales in 2011 will be put under pressure by rising costs.

“We are slightly worried about the inflationary outlook as the rise in the cost of living will bear down on the pace of growth in new sales in the motor industry sector,” Norman Lamprecht, executive director at Naamsa told the Mail & Guardian.

NEW YORK, July 4 (Reuters Life!) – A new app aims to
maximise the chances of meeting a member of the opposite sex by
using facial recognition technology to show how many men and
women there are in any given bar.

Scene Tap’s app also records how crowded a bar is by logging
the total number of people inside.

It operates using cameras installed at the doors of
participating bars which can distinguish between men and women
and give the approximate age of the patrons.

So far some 200 bars in the United States have signed up
ahead of the imminent start of the scheme, 50 of them in Scene
Tap’s home base of Chicago.

CEO Cole Harper told Forbes magazine the facial recognition
software is not able to be linked up with Facebook or detect
identity, and it certainly can’t keep track of how much people
are drinking.

Harper, 27, and his co-founder came up with the idea while
“bar-hopping, spending a lot of money on cabs, getting somewhere
and not having it be a good time” in Chicago.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

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