Security industry workers have called on the government to introduce a minimum wage in their sector to address shortcomings in their conditions of service. The call was made by members of the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union during a march to the Labour Department’s regional offices in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
Newspaper reports suggesting something untoward in a deal between Russian companies and the African National Congress-aligned Chancellor House firm are nonsense, the ANC said on Tuesday. ”It is a deal between private companies that has nothing to do with government or the ANC,” said ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama, adding that he did not want to comment on it.
The head of the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe, Archbishop Pius Ncube, criticised the South African government on Tuesday for failing to rein in Harare’s hard-line President Robert Mugabe. ”They are in the best position to put pressure on Zimbabwe, to call for sanctions if necessary,” the archbishop of Bulawayo said on the SAfm radio station.
Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota officially received the frigate SAS Mendi on behalf of the government at the Port Elizabeth harbour on Tuesday. The SAS Mendi is the fourth Meko A-200 San frigate built for South Africa by the German arms company ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems.
United States restaurant chain Hooters, known for waitresses in short shorts and tight tops, will open its first branch in Israel this summer, in the Mediterranean seaside city of Tel Aviv. ”I strongly believe that the Hooters concept is something that Israelis are looking for,” said Ofer Ahiraz, who bought the Hooters franchise for Israel.
Russia has told Iran that it will withhold fuel for Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant unless Tehran suspends its uranium enrichment programme as the United Nations Security Council demands, the New York Times reported on Monday.
No buses will be operating in Johannesburg until Metrobus is satisfied with the safety of its employees and commuters, the company said on Tuesday. ”The situation has not changed. We don’t want to risk the lives of our staff as well as commuters, so there are no buses that are running today [Tuesday],” said a Metrobus spokesperson.
Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane is leading a project to revitalise South Africa’s historic schools. ”We want to restore and preserve these schools for future generations,” said Ndungane in a statement on Tuesday. ”We want them to be centres of cultural and educational excellence.”
Two men have appeared in the Rustenburg Magistrate’s Court for allegedly burning down the home of a prophet in Ramochana near Rustenburg. Dikeledi Njusa’s house was burnt down after irate community members disputed her prophesy that a massive tornado would hit Rustenburg unless everyone paid a R2 coin to ”the water snake”.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) hopes that the government’s proposed elephant-management regulations will lead to elephant-back safaris being abolished. The draft rules propose stopping the capture from the wild of anything other than genuine orphan elephant calves.