Word: africas
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...been with Standard Chartered. Though headquartered in London, most of StanChart's operations are centered in the emerging markets of Asia, the Middle East and Africa - and as a result, it has not only weathered the crisis but continued to prosper. Last year, during the height of the economic storm, the bank's pretax profits surged 19%, while assets increased 32% to $435 billion. This was no fluke: StanChart in early May said it achieved record profits in the first quarter of 2009, and its London-listed shares have doubled since March. Such a stellar performance during the worst recession...
Lately, the pace of transformation has been picking up, and the World Cup is one of the reasons. In 2004, South Africa won the contest to host the 2010 soccer championships, ushering in a $10 billion national infrastructure upgrade. In Joburg, that includes an underground train linking the city to a new airport, roads, a rapid bus system and two rehabbed stadiums. Most of the improvements were already planned, but as Williamson says, the Cup meant "a five-year plan became a two-year...
Just as crucial as how the government is changing Soweto is how Soweto is changing itself. Soweto is the crucible of South Africa's growing black middle class, a status that comes as no surprise: as the place where the uprisings that eventually overthrew apartheid began and as the former home of Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the township has long been at the forefront of change. Today shacks are being replaced by houses. Bars, restaurants and hotels are thriving. BMWs and Mercedeses clog the streets. Richard Maponya opened the glass-and-steel Maponya Mall on Soweto's main highway...
...nine of them. "Soweto was notorious, a place where people killed each other, stabbed each other," she says. "Now people even come here from Sandton [a rich Joburg suburb]. The city is getting to know itself again. We're becoming one place again." When the world converges on South Africa for the World Cup next year, it will, officials hope, find a city, and a country, finally beginning to heal...
...pictures of China doing business in Africa...